

» ° -vV ^ n A ^ v 

,**<>„ C\ aO' 





L % V A* A 
: ^v> • 

« a<* ; 

* * v <$> « 


0 ,l^L% V* 



o , * 


A 

* «? Av» 

* K ># " * _ _ . 

<✓ '• • * * A o. 'A.T*' A <b 
•••,% 0 o* \ J? ,. -' . , ^ 

•v*!^*-. *b/ :£m^\ 



♦ A ^ 

* ,-r <#>. 






®* / *<J. *' • 

.’•«* .<T .•*’% *> 


>° •»* - Siss?!^ ‘ «5 ^ 

;♦ «o A *>w.‘ A <* v-^,-. 






</* 

^ « 

^t* «*^ ^ 

&, *'T.V A 

* ♦ *^o .A • 1 ' * „ <£*. 

# o /* *W^V- 



4? *> v % 


^ ^ . , 

* * .6* V % A^7* * A <* 

c ° "°° A ♦•*“' 

.v^ja*- ob ^ 



> *° ’V , 

,.., _ ♦ r\ A * 

t (-V / rlr 4 

*p • m * A U $> * • • ® 

• *••- C\ a 0 . LV 1 % ^ V 



A 



V 'fWft'* A V -V V 

■% *' <f> - 

'Tv** A <v 'o.» _,. 

° Jr %r c° • 

• ,, ° »• :£m&- *+ o^ ; 

°V -ISIS** «5 - 

♦ fN /C r T*vVl\\\\>?> * K> 

„» <*. # <tr 

0 f ... ^ *** < ’ A *•'. 

av > \r 









V cv > 

% ^ -v *V 2 KV. a ' 

• JaH|: W 

c S -• o * V^v. O * A vf* 

♦ V 5 ^ WWfST . aV ^ o^K/Maf * <£> 

« -a.v ^ ^ . <r^> v « ,<& « 

* ,6 O ^7V» • /V <. '*.»* Ay \*> -..* v 

>(T 0 fr^J * * <J ° -> ^ r'll* ^ ,0* c °" ° ♦ **o _ A 

* '>b ^ y.r* .*^iS!lEV •>*- •* 






,' h ° ■%„ . 

* • * ' • A® **&* * b „ o * ■$ 

’• c\ A.0 .LVi/. > * v 

»*% V /?- .* 

° ^ V 1 

. V*\ ' * ,. < "S */' 



r oK 


\0 *rf 

• 1 *_°- "C\ * 0 f ** VL'* V 

* a» *- 

cy * 

° ^ v’ 

. aV-^. ;* 


t » *\ 

* \ * 

»& • * ' * * <£» 
j* Sar/flA: % 0 • 

* 'Mm>s ' 



A <> ° 

; v v % 

A <T^ '<>.» 

A . «• 1 * „ <£*. 

^ .* _/»<^ * C 

.» ’- W 

. j- 0 -^ \i»ibv /°-* 

* ' ’ ' ’ A ° 0 **•••* 0 °^ 





























Books for Home Reading, 

PUBLISHED BY 

HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 


UglT" Harper & Brothers will send any of the following works by mail , postage 
prepaid , to any part of the United States, on receipt of the* price. 

fff" Harper’s Catalogue mailed free on receipt of Six Cents in postage stamps. 


JACOB ABBOTT ON TRAINING THE YOUNG. Gentle Meas¬ 
ures in the Management and Training of the Young. A Book for the Parents of 
Young Children. By Jacob Abbott. Illustrated. i2mo, Cloth, $i 75. 

GAIL HAMILTON’S WOMAN’S WORTH. Woman’s Worth and 

Worthlessness : the Complement to “ A New Atmosphere.” By Gail Hamilton. 
i2mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

ABBOTT’S SCIENCE FOR THE YOUNG. Science for the Young. 

By Jacob Abbott. Illustrated. 

Vol. I. HEAT. i2mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Vol. II. LIGHT. i2mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Vol. III. WATER AND LAND, iamo, Cloth, $1 50. 

DIO LEWIS’S OUR GIRLS. Our Girls. By Dio Lewis, A.M., 

M.D. i2mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

BAZAR BOOK OF DECORUM. The Bazar Book of Decorum. The 

Care of the Person, Manners, Etiquette, and Ceremonials. i6mo, Toned Paper, 
Cloth, Beveled Edges, $1 00. 

HOLME’S LIGHT AT EVENING TIME. Light at Evening Time : 

a Book of Support and Comfort for the Aged. Edited by John Stanford Holme, 
D.D. Elegantly printed from large type on toned paper. Square 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. 

ABBOTT’S LIFE OF CHRIST. Jesus of Nazareth: his Life and 

Teachings ; Founded on the Four Gospels, and Illustrated by Reference to the 
Manners, Customs, Religious Beliefs, and Political Institutions of his Times. By 
Lyman Abbott. With Designs by Dore, Delaroche, Fenn, and others. Crown 
8vo, Cloth, Beveled Edges, $3 50. 

ABBOTT’S OLD TESTAMENT SHADOWS. Old Testament Shad¬ 
ows of New Testament Truths. By Lyman Abbott. Elegantly Illustrated from 
Designs by Dore, Delaroche, Durham, and Parsons. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00 ; Gilt 
Edges, $3 50. 

MISS MULOCK’S WORKS. Library Edition of Works by the Au¬ 
thor of “John Halifax, Gentleman.” i2mo, Cloth, $1 50 per vol. The following 
volumes are now ready : 

Hannah.— Olive.— Ogilvies.— The Head of the Family.— John Halifax.— 
Agatha’s Husband.—A Life for a Life.—Two Marriages.—Christian’s Mistake 
—A Noble Life.—A Hero.—Studies from Life.—The Fairy Book.—Unkind 
Word.—Mistress and Maid.—The Woman’s Kingdom.—A Brave Lady. 





2 


Harper 6 ° Brothers' Books for Home Reading . 


DOOLITTLE’S CHINA. Social Life of the Chinese : with some Ac¬ 
count of their Religious, Governmental, Educational, and Business Customs and 
Opinions. With special but not exclusive Reference to Fuhchau. By Rev. Justus 
Doolittle, Fourteen Years Member of the Fuhchau Mission of the American 
Board. Illustrated with more than 150 characteristic Engravings on Wood. 2 
vols., i2mo, Cloth, $5 00. 

LYMAN BEECHER’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, &c. Autobiography, 

Correspondence, &c., of Lyman Beecher, D.D. Edited by his Son, Charles 
Beecher. With Three Steel Portraits, and Engravings on Wood. 2 vols., i2mo, 
Cloth, $5 00. 

QLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) LIFE OF EDWARD IRVING. The Life 

of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church, London. Illustrated 
by his Journals and Correspondence. By Mrs. Oliphant. Portrait. 8vo, Cloth, 
$3 50 . 

NEVIUS’S CHINA. China and the Chinese : a General Description 

of the Country and its Inhabitants; its Civilization and Form of Government; its 
Religious and Social Institutions ; its Intercourse with other Nations; and its 
Present Condition and Prospects. By the Rev. John L. Nevius, Ten Years a 
Missionary in China. With a Map and Illustrations, izmo, Cloth, $1 75. 

WINCHELL’S SKETCHES OF CREATION. Sketches of Crea¬ 
tion : a Popular View of some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in refer¬ 
ence to the History of Matter and of Life. Together with a Statement of the Inti¬ 
mations of Science respecting the Primordial Condition and the Ultimate Destiny 
of the Earth and the Solar System. By Alexander Winchell, LL.D., Professor 
of Geology, Zoology, and Botany in the University of Michigan, and Director of the 
State Geological Survey. With Illustrations, nmo, Cloth, $2 00. 

WHITE’S MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. The Massacre 

of St. Bartholomew; preceded by a History of the Religious Wars in the Reign 
of Charles IX. By Henry White, M.A. With Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $1 75. 

KRUMMACHER’S DAVID. David, the King of Israel: a Portrait 

drawn from Bible History and the Book of Psalms. By Frederick William 
Krummacher, D.D., Author of “ Elijah the Tishbite,” &c. Translated under 
the express Sanction of the Author, by the Rev. M. G. Easton, M.A. With a 
Letter from Dr. Krummacher to his American Readers, and a Portrait. i2mo, 
Cloth, $1 75. 

SMILES’S CHARACTER. Character. By Samuel Smiles. i2mo, 

Cloth, $1 50. 

SMILES’S LIFE OF THE STEPHENSONS. The Life of George 

Stephenson, and of his Son, Robert Stephenson ; comprising, also, a History of the 
Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive. By Samuel Smiles. 
With Steel Portraits and numerous Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00. 

SMILES’S HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS. The Huguenots : 

their Settlements, Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland. By Samuel 
Smiles. With an Appendix relating to the tluguenots in America. Crown 8vo, 
Cloth, $1 75. 

SMILES’S SELF-HELP. Self-Help ; with Illustrations of Character, 

Conduct, and Perseverance. By Samuel Smiles. i2mo, Cloth, $1 00. 

THOMSON’S LAND AND THE BOOK. The Land and the Book ; 

or, Biblical Illustrations drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and the 
Scenery of the Holy Land. By W. M. Thomson, D.D., Twenty-five Years a 
Missionary of the A.B.C.F.M. in Syria and Palestine. With two elaborate Maps 
of Palestine, an accurate Plan of Jerusalem, and several hundred Engravings, rep¬ 
resenting the Scenery, Topography, and Productions of the Holy Land, and the 
Costumes, Manners, and Habits of the People. 2 large i2mo vols., Cloth, $5 00. 



TALMAGE’S SERMONS. 

\ 




















t 



'{'Ali'/fiYi 


■•miuu.niu 




umi 



,** 4f / / /•j-M 


THE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE 




































































































































































































































































































































































































3/$f.C £ 


SERMONS 


BY THE 







REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, 

4 > & 

AUTHOR OF 


CRUMBS SWEPT UP,” “ THE ABOMINATIONS OF MODERN SOCIETY , 77 ETC. 


DELIVERED IN THE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

l 872. 









3 - MAR 14 

COPY ........ 1978 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
Harper & Brothers, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 








PUBLISHERS’ ADVERTISEMENT. 


The position of a gifted, earnest, and successful 
preacher of the Gospel in our day differs widely from 
that of one equally gifted a hundred or even fifty years 
ago. Then the preacher’s usefulness was circumscribed. 
With very few exceptions, it was limited to his own 
church and congregation. Few sermons were printed 
in book-form, and fewer still were reported in newspa¬ 
pers. But now thte congregation of readers outnumbers 
that of hearers a thousand fold. Whitefield and Wesley 
preached to audiences of a few hundred; to-day, if liv¬ 
ing, they would preach through the telegraph and the 
press to millions. 

Among living preachers whose words awaken thought 
and sympathy in thousands of way-places that have nev¬ 
er known the sound of their voice, none occupies a high¬ 
er position than the man whose pulpit utterances are 
given to the public in the following pages. Mr. Talmage 
preaches in Brooklyn, where an audience of about three 
thousand persons listen every Sunday to his eloquent ex¬ 
position of the Sacred Word; but far beyond the walls 
of his church, beyond the precincts of his own city, in 
towns, in villages throughout the length and breadth of. 

A 2 




X 


PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. 


the land, a vast congregation of readers wait with eager¬ 
ness for the printed message. To place these glowing 
words within the reach of this vast multitude of readers, 
in a more convenient and permanent form than that af¬ 
forded by the newspaper press, was the object in view in 
the compilation of these sermons ; and in sending them 
abroad in this form, the publishers trust that they may 
carry instruction, comfort, and spiritual consolation into 
thousands of homes where the preacher, though to sight 
unknown, may be revered as a teacher and beloved as a 
friend. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

SUNDOWN. 13 

FOWL OF EVERY WING. 25 

THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 35 

AS THE LEAF. 49 

THE WONDERFUL. CO 

THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 71 

THE BALANCES. 83 

CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 94 

CHRISTIAN HAND-SHAKING. 102 

THE RED WORD. m . 112 

THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 121 

THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 135 

BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH. 145 

THANKSGIVING DAY..-.. 158 

LINES OF CIRC UMVALLATION. 172 

LAST THINGS. .. 184 

*NQ REST HERE.. 196 

DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 207 

THE RESURRECTION. 221 

TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE, ETC. 232 

THE SEA-CAPTAIN’S CALL. 245 

CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 258 

THE A AND THE Z. 270 

THE LAST NIGHT... 279 

THE RAINBOW ROUND THE THRONE. 291 

DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 301 

THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDER, ETC.. . .. . i 312 

LAZARUS AND DIVES. 322 

A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 335 

THE TWO BIRDS. 347 

AS THE STARS FOREVER. 360 

GOD OUR MOTHER. 373 

THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 387 





































. 






. 






' » X 




.. 




. 










* '• * 1 . » 

















< 















• - ♦ • • • A . 


























. . . 


... 




• • « 
























. . 








•' • 












' 

V. ^ - ___ I 







" 





' 


























SERMONS. 


SUNDOWN. 


“At even time it shall be light .”—Zechariah xiv., 7. 

HILE “ night,” in all languages, is the symbol for 



» ▼ gloom and suffering, it is often really cheerful, 
bright, and impressive. I speak not of such nights as 
come down with no -star pouring light from above, or 
silvered wave tossing up light from beneath—murky, 
hurtling, portentous, but such as you often see when the 
pomp and magnificence of heaven turn out on night- 
parade; and it seems as though the song which the 
morning stars began so long ago were chiming yet 
among the constellations, and the sons of God were 
shouting for joy. Such nights the sailor blesses from 
the forecastle, and the trapper on # the vast prairie, and 
the belated traveler by the road-side, and the soldier from 
the tent, earthly hosts gazing upon heavenly, and shep¬ 
herds guarding their flocks afield, while angel hands 
above them set the silver bells a ringing: “ Glory to God 
in the highest, and on earth peace; good will toward 
men.” 

What a solemn and glorious thing is night in the wil¬ 
derness ! Night among the mountains! Night on the 



14 


SUNDOWN. 


ocean! Fragrant night among tropical groves! Flash¬ 
ing night amid arctic severities! Calm night on Roman 
Campagna! Awful night among the Cordilleras! Glo¬ 
rious night 5 mid sea after a tempest! Thank God for 
the night! The moon and the stars which rule it are 
light-houses on the coast, toward which I hope we all are 
sailing, and blind mariners are we if, with so many beam¬ 
ing, burning, flaming glories to guide us, we can not find 
our way into the harbor. 

My text may well suggest that, as the natural evening 
is often luminous, so it shall be light in the evening of 
our sorrows—of old age—of the world’s history—of the 
Christian life. 

“ At eventime it shall be light. 55 

I. This prophecy will be fulfilled in the evening of 
Christian sorrow . For a long time it is broad daylight. 
The sun rides high. Innumerable activities go ahead 
with a thousand feet, and work with a thousand arms, 
and the pickaxe struck a mine, and the battery made a 
discovery, and the investment yielded its twenty per 
cent., and the book came to its twentieth edition, and the 
farm quadrupled in value, and sudden fortune hoisted to 
high position, and children w T ere praised, and friends 
without number swayned into the family hive, and pros¬ 
perity sang in the music, and stepped in the dance, and 
glowed in the wine, and ate at the banquet, and all the 
gods of music, and ease, and gratification gathered 
around this Jupiter holding in his hands so many thun¬ 
derbolts of power. But every sun must set, and the 
brightest day must have its twilight. Suddenly the sky 
w T as overcast. The fountain dried up. The song hushed. 
The wolf broke into the family fold and carried off the 


SUNDOWN. 


15 


best lamb. A deep howl of woe came crashing down 
through thQ joyous symphonies. At one rough twang 
of the hand of disaster the harp-strings all broke. Down 
went the strong business firm! Away went long-estab¬ 
lished credit! Up flew a flock of calumnies! The new 
book would not sell. A patent could not be secured for 
the invention. Stocks sank like lead. The insurance 
company exploded. “ How much,” says the sheriff, “ will 
you bid for this piano ?” “ How much for this library ?” 
“ How much for this family picture ?” “ How much ? 
Will you let it go at less than half price ? Going— going 
—gone !” Will the grace of God hold one up in such 
circumstances ? What have become of the great multi¬ 
tude of God’s children who have been pounded of the 
flail, and crushed under the wheel, and trampled under 
the hoof ? Did they lie down in the dust, weeping, wail¬ 
ing, and gnashing their teeth? Did they, like Job, curse 
God, and want to die because they had boils ? When' 
the rod of fatherly chastisement struck them, did they 
strike back ? Because they found one bitter cup on the 
table of God’s supply, did they upset the whole table ? 
Did they kneel down at their empty money-vault and 
say, “ All my treasures are gone ?” Did they stand by 
the grave of their dead, saying,•“ There never will be a 
resurrection ?” 

Did they bemoan their thwarted plans and say, “ The 
stocks are down—would God I were dead ?” Did the 
night of their disaster come upon them moonless, star¬ 
less, dank, and howling, smothering and choking their 
life out? Ho! Ho! Ho! At eventime it was light. 
The swift promises overtook them. The eternal constel¬ 
lations, from their circuit about God’s throne, poured 


10 


SUNDOWN. 


down an infinite lustre. Under their shining the bil¬ 
lows of trouble took on crests, and plumes of gold, and 
jasper, and amethyst, and flame. All the trees of life 
rustled in the midsummer air of God’s love. The night¬ 
blooming assurances of Christ’s sympathy filled all the 
atmosphere with heaven. The soul at every step seemed 
to start up from its feet bright-winged joys, warbling 
heavenward. “It is good that I have been afflicted,” 
cries David. “ The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
away,” exclaims Job. “ Sorrowful, yet always rejoic¬ 
ing,” says St. Paul. “And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes,” exclaims John, in apocalyptic 
vision. At eventime it was light. . Light from the cross! 
Light from the promises! Light from the throne! 
S\tr earning, joyous, outgushing, everlasting light! 

II. The text shall find fulfillment in the time of old 
age. It is a grand thing to be young—to have the sight 
clear, and the hearing acute, and the step elastic, and all 
our pulses marching on to the drumming of a stout 
heart. Mid-life and old age will be denied many of us, 
but youth—we all know what that is. Those wrinkles 
were not always on your brow. That snow was not al¬ 
ways on your head. That brawny muscle did not al¬ 
ways bunch your arm. You have not always worn 
spectacles. Grave and dignified as you now are, you 
once went coasting down the hill-side, or threw off your 
hat for the race, or sent the ball flying sky-high. But 
youth will not always last. It stays only long enough 
to gwe us exuberant spirits, and broad shoulders for 
burden-carrying, and an arm with which to battle our 
way through difficulties. Life’s path, if you follow it 
long enough, will come under frowning crag and across 


SUNDOWN. 


IT 


trembling causeway. Blessed old age, if you let it come 
naturally. You can not hide it. You may try to cover 
the wrinkles, but you can not cover the wrinkles. If the 
time has come for you to be old, be not ashamed to be 
old. The grandest things in all the universe are old. 
Old mountains; old rivers; old seas; old stars, and an 
old eternity. Then do not be ashamed to be old, unless 
you are older than the mountains, and older than the 
stars. 

How men and women will lie! They say they are 
forty, but they are sixty. They say they are twenty, but 
they are thirty. They say they are sixty, but they are 
eighty. How some people will lie! 

Glorious old age, if found in the way of righteous¬ 
ness ! How beautiful the old age of Jacob, leaning on 
the top of his staff; of John Quincy Adams, falling with 
the harness on; of Washington Irving, sitting, pen in 
hand, amid the scenes himself had made classical; of 
John Angell James, to the last proclaiming the Gospel 
to the masses of Birmingham; of Theodore Frelinghuy- 
sen, down to feebleness and emaciation devoting his il¬ 
lustrious faculties to the kingdom of God! At even¬ 
time it w T as light! 

See that you do honor to the aged. A philosopher 
stood at the corner of the street day after day, saying to 
the passers-by, “ You will be an old man; you will be 
an old man.” “ You will be an old woman; you will be 
an old woman.” People thought that he was crazy. I 
do not think that he was. Smooth the way for that 
mother’s feet; they have not many more steps to take. 
Steady those tottering limbs; they will soon be at rest. 
Plow not up that face with any more wrinkles; trouble 


18 


SUNDOWN ; 


and care have marked it full enough. Thrust- no thorn 
into that old heart; it will soon cease to beat. “ The 
eye that mocketh its father, and refuseth to obey its moth¬ 
er, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young 
eagles shall eat it.” The bright morning and hot noon¬ 
day of life have passed with many. It is four o’clock! 
five o’clock! six o’clock! The shadows fall longer, and 
thicker, and faster. Seven o'clock ! eight o'clock ! The 
sun has dipped below the horizon ; the warmth has gone 
out of the air. Nine o'clock! ten o'clock! The heavy 
dews are falling; the activities of life’s day are all 
hushed; it is time to go to bed. Eleven o'clock! twelve 
o'clock ! The patriarch sleeps the blessed sleep, the cool 
sleep, the long sleep. Heaven’s messengers of light have 
kindled bonfires of victory all over the heavens. At even¬ 
time it is light! light ! 

III. My text shall find fulfillment in the latter day of 
the Church. Only a few missionaries, a few churches, a 
few good men, compared with the institutions leprous 
and putrefied. 

It is early yet in the history of every thing good. Civ¬ 
ilization and Christianity are just getting out of the cra¬ 
dle. The light of martyr-stakes, flashing all up and down 
the sky, is but the flaming of the morning; but when 
the evening of the world shall come, glory to God’s con¬ 
quering truth, it shall be light. War’s sword clanging 
back in the scabbard; intemperance buried under ten 
' thousand broken decanters; the world’s impurity turning 
its brow heavenward for the benediction, “ Blessed are 
the pure in heart;” the last vestige of selfishness sub¬ 
merged in heaven-descending charities; all China wor¬ 
shiping. Dr. Abeel’s Savior; all India believing in Hen- 


SUNDOWN. 


19 


ry Martyn’s Bible; aboriginal superstition acknowledg¬ 
ing David Brainard’s piety; human bondage delivered 
through .Thomas Clarkson’s Christianity; vagrancy com¬ 
ing back from its pollution at the call of Elizabeth Fry’s 
Redeemer; the mountains coming down; the valleys 
going up; holiness” inscribed on horse’s bell, and silk¬ 
worm’s thread, and brown-thrasher’s wing, and shell’s 
tinge, and manufacturer’s shuttle, and chemist’s labora¬ 
tory, and king’s sceptre, and nation’s Magna Charta. Not 
** a hospital, for there are no wounds; not an asylum, 
for there are no orphans ; not a prison, for there are no 
criminals; not an almshouse, for there are no paupers; 
not a tear, for there are no sorrows. The long dirge of 
earth’s lamentation has ended in the triumphal march of 
redeemed empires, the forests harping it on vine-strung 
branches, the waters chanting it among the gorges, the 
thunders drumming it among the hills, the ocean giving 
it forth with its organs, trade-winds touching the keys, 
and Euroclydon’s foot on the pedal. I want to see John 
Howard when the last prisoner .is reformed; I want to 
see Florence Nightingale when the last sabre-wound has 
stopped hurting; I want to see William Penn when the 
last Indian has been civilized; I want to see John Huss 
when the last flame of persecution has been extinguished; 
I want to see John Bunyan after the last pilgrim has 
come to the gate of the celestial city; above all, I want 
to see Jesus after the last saint has his throne, and begun 
to sing Hallelujah ! 

You have watched the calmness and the glory of the 
evening hour. The laborers have come from the fleld. 
The heavens are glowing with an indescribable efful¬ 
gence, as though the sun in departing had forgotten to 


20 


SUNDOWN. 


shut the gate after it. All the beauty of cloud and leaf 
swim in the lake. For a star in the sky, a star in the 
water; heaven above, and heaven beneath. Not a leaf 
rustling, or a 'bee humming, or a grasshopper chirping. 
Silence in the meadow; silence in the orchard; silence 
among the hills. 

Thus bright and beautiful shall be the evening of the 
world. The heats of earthly conflict are cooled. The 
glory of heaven fills all the scene with love, and joy, and 
peace. At eventime it is light! light ! 

IV. Finally, my text shall find fulfillment at the end 
of the Christian’s life. You know how short a winter’s 
day is, and how little work you can do. Now, my friends, 
life is a short winter’s day. The sun rises at eight and 
sets at four. The birth - angel and the death - augel fly 
only a little way apart. Baptism and burial are near to¬ 
gether. With one hand the mother rocks the cradle, and 
with the other she touches a grave. 

I went into the house of one of my parishioners on 
Thanksgiving day. The little child of the household 
was bright and glad, and with it I bounded up and down 
the hall. Christmas day came, and the light of that 
household had perished. We stood, with black book, 
reading over the grave, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” 

But I hurl away this darkness. I can not have you 
weep. Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory, 
at eventime it shall be light! 

*1 have seen many Christians die. I never saw any of 
them die in darkness. What if the billows of death do 
rise above our girdle, who does not love to bathe? What 
though other lights do go out in the blast, what do we 
want of them when all the gates of glory swing open be- 


SUNDOWN. 


21 


fore us, and from a myriad voices, a myriad harps, a myr¬ 
iad thrones, a myriad palaces, there dash upon us “Ho¬ 
sannah! Hosannah!” 

“ Throw back the shutters and let the sun in,” said 
dying Scoville McCollum, one of my Sabbath-school boys. 

You can see Paul putting on robes and wings of as¬ 
cension as he exclaims, “ I have fought the good fight; I 
have finished my course; I have kept the faith.” 

Hugh M‘Kail went to one side of the scaffold of mar¬ 
tyrdom and cried, “ Farewell sun, moon, and stars! fare¬ 
well all earthly delights!” Then went to the other side 
of the scaffold and cried, “Welcome, God and Father! 
Welcome, sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the cove¬ 
nant! Welcome, death! Welcome, glory!” 

A fninister of Christ in Philadelphia, dying, said, in 
his last moments, C6 Imove into the light” 

They did not go down doubting, and fearing, and shiv¬ 
ering, but their battle - cry rang through all the caverns 
of the sepulchre, and was echoed back from all the 
thrones of heaven, “ O death! where is thy sting ? O 
grave! where is thy victory ?” Sing, my soul, of joys to 
come. 

I saw a beautiful being wandering up and down the 
earth.. She touched the aged, and they became young. 
She touched the poor, and they became rich. I said, 
“ Who is this beautiful being, wandering up and down 
the earth ?” They told me that her name was Death. 
What a strange thrill of joy when the palsied Christiah 
begins to use his arm again! When the blind Christian 
begins to see again ! When the deaf Christian begins to 
hear again! When the poor pilgrim puts his feet on 
such pavement, and joins in such company, and has a 


22 


SUNDOWN. 


free seat in such a great temple! Hungry men no more 
to hunger; thirsty men no more to thirst; weeping 
men no more to weep; dying men no more to die. 
Gather up all sweet words, all jubilant expressions, all 
rapturous exclamations: bring them to me, and I will 
pour them upon this stupendous theme of the soul’s dis- 
enthralment! Oh! the joy of the spirit as it shall mount 
up toward the throne of God, shouting Freeh Free! 
Your eye has gazed upon the garniture of earth and 
heaven; but eye hath not seen it. Your ear has caught 
harmonies uncounted and indescribable—caught them 
from harp’s trill, and bird’s carol, and waterfall’s dash, 
and ocean’s doxology; but the ear hath not heard it. 
How did those blessed ones get up into the light ? What 
hammer knocked off their chains ? What loom wove' 
their robes of light? Who gave them wings? Ah! 
eternity is not long enough to tell it; seraphim have not 
capacity enough to realize it—the marvels of redeeming 
love! Let the palms wave; let the crowns glitter; let 
the anthems ascend ; let the trees of Lebanon clap their 
hands—they can not tell the half of it. Archangel be¬ 
fore the throne, thou failest! 

Sing on, praise on, ye hosts of the glorified; and if 
with your sceptres you can not reach it, and with your 
songs you can not express it, then let all the myriads of 
the saved unite in the exclamation, “ Jesus ! Jesus! 
Jesus !” 

There will be a password at the gate of heaven. A 
great multitude come up and knock at the gate. The 
gatekeeper says, “ The password.” They say, u We have 
no password. . We were great on earth, and now we 
come up to be great in heaven.” A voice from within 



SUNDOWN. 


23 


answers, “ I never knew yon.” Another group come up 
to the gate of heaven and knock. The gatekeeper says, 
“The password.” They say,“We have no password. 
We did a great many noble things on earth. We en¬ 
dowed colleges, and took care of the poor.” The voice 
from within says, “ I never knew you.” Another group 
come up to the gate of heaven and knock. The gate¬ 
keeper says,“The password.” They answer,“We were 
wanderers from God, and deserved to die; but we heard 
the voice of Jesus— ” “Ay ! ay!” says the gatekeeper, 
“ that is the password ! Lift up your heads, ye ever¬ 
lasting gates, and let these people come in.” They go in 
and surround the throne, jubilant forever! 

Ah! do you wonder that the last hours of the Chris¬ 
tian on earth are illuminated by thoughts of the coming 
glory* 

Light in the evening. The medicines may be bitter. 
The pain may be sharp. The parting may be heart¬ 
rending. Yet, light in the evening. As all the stars of 
this night sink their anchors of pearl in lake, and river, 
and sea, so the waves of Jordan shall be illuminated with 
the down-flashing of the glory to come. 

The dying soul looks up at the constellations. “ The 
Lord is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear?” 
“ Thb Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall 
lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall 
wipe away all tears from their eyes.” 

Close the eyes of the departed one: earth would seem 
tame to its enchanted vision. Fold the hands: life’s 
work is ended. Veil the face: it has been transfigured. 

Mr. Toplady, in his dying hour, said, “ Light.” Com¬ 
ing nearer the expiring moment, he exclaimed, with illu- 


24 


SUNDOWN. 


minated countenance, “ Lightl” In the last instant of 
his breathing, he lifted up his hands and cried Light! 
Light !” 

Thank God for light in the evening! 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


25 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


“All fowl of every wing .”—Ezekiel xvii., 23. 

HE cedar of Lebanon is a royal tree. It stands six 



thousand feet above the level of the sea. A mis¬ 
sionary counted the concentric circles, and found one 
tree thirty-five hundred years old—long-rooted, broad- 
branched, all the year in luxuriant foliage. The same 
branches that bent in the- hurricane that David saw 
sweeping over Lebanon, rock to-day over the head of the 
American traveler. This monarch of the forest, with its 
leafy fingers, plucks the honors of a thousand years, and 
sprinkles them upon its own uplifted brow, as though 
some great hallelujah of heaven had been planted upon 
Lebanon, and it were rising up with all its long-armed 
strength to take hold of the hills wdience it came. Oh! 
w T hat a fine place for birds to nest in! In hot days they 
come thither—the eagle, the dove, the swallow, the spar¬ 
row, and the raven. 

My text intimates that Christ is the cedar, and the 
people from all quarters are the birds that lodge among 
the branches. “ It shall be a goodly cedar, and under 
it shall dwell all fowl of every wing.” As in Ezekiel’s * 
time, so now—Christ is a goodly cedar, and to him are 
flying all kinds of people—young and old, rich and poor; 
men high-soaring as the eagle, those fierce as the raven, 
and those gentle as the dove. “ All fowl of every wing.” 

First, the young may come. Of the eighteen hundred 


B 


26 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


and seventy-one years that have passed, about sixteen 
hundred have been wasted by the good in misdirected 
efforts. Until Kobert Raikes came, there was no organ¬ 
ized effort for saving the young. We spend all of our 
strength trying to bend old trees, when a little pressure 
would have been sufficient for the sapling. We let men 
go down to the very bottom of sin before we try to lift 
them up. It is a great deal easier to keep a train on the 
track than to get it on when it is off. The. experienced 
reinsman' checks the fiery steed at the first jump, for 
when he gets in full swing, the swift hoofs clicking fire 
from the pavement, and the bit between his teeth, his 
momentum is irresistible. It is said that the young 
must be allowed to sow their “wild oats.” I have no¬ 
ticed that those who sow their wild oats seldom try to 
raise any other kind of crop. Heaven is in one direc¬ 
tion, hell is in another. If you are going to heaven, you 
had better take the straight road, and not try to go to 
Boston by the way of Hew Orleans. What is to be the 
history of this multitude of young people who sit and 
stand around me to-night ? I will take you by the hand 
and show you a glorious sunrise. I will not whine about 
this thing, nor groan about it; but come, young men and 
maidens, Jesus wants you. Ilis hand is love; his voice 
is music; his smile is heaven. Religion will put no 
handcuffs on your wrist, no hopples on your feet, no 
brand on your forehead. 

I went through the heaviest snow-storm I have ever 
known to see a dying girl. Her cheek on the pillow was 
white as the snow on the casement. Her large, round 
eye had not lost any of its lustre. Loved ones stood all 
around the bed trying to hold her back. Her mother 


FOWL OF EVERY WING . 


27 

could not give her up; her father could not give her 
up; and one nearer to her than either father or mother 
was frantic with grief. I said, “ Fanny, how do you 
feel V “ Oh!” she says, “ happy! happy! Mr. Talmage, 
tell all the young folks that religion will make them hap¬ 
py. 7 ' As I came out of the room, louder than all the 
sobs and wailings of grief I heard the clear, sweet, glad 
voice of the dying girl: “Good-night; we shall meet 
again on the other side of the river.” The next Sabbath 
we buried her. We brought white flowers and laid them 
on the coffin. There was in all that crowded church but 
one really happy and delighted face, and that was the 
face of Fanny. Oh! I wish that to-night my Lord Jesus 
would go through this audience, and take all these flow¬ 
ers of youth and garland them on his brow. The cedar 
is a fit refuge for birds of brightest plumage and swift¬ 
est wing. See, they fly! they fly! “All fowl of every 
wing.” 

Again: I remark that the old may come. You say, 
“ Suppose a man has to go on crutches; suppose he is 
blind; suppose he is deaf; suppose that nine tenths of 
his life has been wasted.” Then I answer, Come with 
crutches; come, old men, blind and deaf, come to Jesus. 
If you would sweep your hand around before your blind 
eyes, the first thing you would touch would be the cross. 
It is hard for an aged man or woman to have grown old 
without religion. Their taste has gone. The peach and 
the grape have lost their flavor. They say that somehow 
fruit does not taste as it used to. Their hearing gets de¬ 
fective, and they miss a great deal that is said in their 
presence. Their friends have all gone, and every body 
seems so strange. The world seems to go away from 


28 


FO WL OF EVER Y WING. 


them, and they are left all alone. They begin to feel in 
the way -when you come into the room where they are; 
and they move their chair nervously, and say, “ I hope I 
am not in the way.” Alas! that father and mother 
should ever be in the w T ay. When you were sick, and 
they sat up all night rocking you, singing to you, admin¬ 
istering to you, did they think that you were in the way? 
Are you tired of the old people ? Do you snap them 
up quick and sharp ? God will curse you to the bone 
for your ingratitude and unkindness. 

Oh! it is hard to be old without religion—to feel this 
world going away, and nothing better coming. If there 
be any here who have gone far on without Christ, I ad¬ 
dress you deferentially. I call you my father and moth¬ 
er. You have found this a tough world for old people. 
Alas! to have aches and pains, and no Christ to soothe 
them. I want to give you a cane better than that you 
lean on. It is the cane that the Bible speaks of when it 
says, “ Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.” I want 
to give you better spectacles than those you now look 
through. It is the spiritual eyesight of divine grace. 
Christ will not think that you are in the way. Does 
your head tremble with the palsy of old age ? Lay it on 
Christ’s bosom. Do you feel lonely now that your com¬ 
panions and children are gone ? I think Christ has them. 
They are safe in his keeping. Very soon he will take 
you where they are. I take hold of your arm as any son 
would take hold of the arm of a father, and try to lead 
you to a place where you can put down all your burden. 
Go with me. Only a little while longer, and your sight 
will come again, and your hearing will come again, and 
with the strength of an immortal athlete you will step on 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


29 


the pavement of heaven. No crutches in heaven; no 
sleepless nights in heaven; no dim eyes in heaven; no 
cross looks for old people. Dwelling there for ages, no 
one will say, “ Father, you know nothing about this; step 
back: you are in the way!” 

Oh, how many dear old folks Jesus has put to sleep! 
How sw T eetly he has closed their eyes! How gently 
folded their arms! How he has put his hand on their 
silent hearts and said, “ Rest now, tired pilgrim. It is 
all over. The tears will never start again. Hush! hush! 
So he gives his beloved sleep.” I think the most beauti¬ 
ful object on earth is an old Christian—the hair white, 
not with the frosts of winter, but with the blossoms of 
the tree of life. I never feel sorry for a Christian old 
man. Why feel sorry for those upon whom the glories 
of the eternal world are about to burst? They are going 
to the goodly cedar. Though their wings are heavy 
with age, God shall renew their strength like the eagle, 
and they shall make their nest in the cedar. “ All fowl 
of every wing.” 

Again: The very bad, the outrageously sinful, may 
come. 

Men talk of the grace of God as though it. were so 
many yards long and so many yards deep. People point 
to the dying thief as an encouragement to the sinner. 
How much better it would be to point to our own case 
and say, “ If God saved us, he can save any body.” 

There may be those here who never had one earnest 
word said to them about their souls. Consider me as 
putting my hand on your shoulder and looking in your 
eye. God has been good to you. You ask, “ How do 
you know that ? He has been very hard on me.” “Where 


30 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


did you come from ?” “ Home.” “ Then you have a 
home. Have you ever thanked God for your home? 
Have you children?” “ Yes.” “Have you ever thanked 
God for your children? Who keeps them safe? Were 
you ever sick?” “Yes.” “Who made you well? Have 
you been fed every day? Who feeds you? Put your 
hand on your pulse. Who makes it throb ? Listen to 
the respiration of your lungs. Who helps you to breathe ? 
Have you a Bible in the house, spreading before you the 
future life ? Who gave you that Bible ?” Oh ! it has 
been a story of goodness and mercy all the way through. 
You have been one of God’s pet children. Who has 
fondled you, and caressed you, and loved you? And 
when you went astray, and wanted to come back, did He 
ever refuse? I know of a father who, after his son 
came back the fourth time, said, “ Ho; I forgave you 
three times, but I will never forgive you again.” And 
the son went off and died. But God takes back his 
children the thousandth time as cheerfully as the first. 
As easily as with my handkerchief I strike the dust off 
this book, God will wipe out all your sins. 

There are hospitals for “ incurables .” When men are 
hopelessly sick, they are sent there. Thank God! there 
is no hospital for spiritual incurables. Though you had 
the worst leprosy that ever struck a soul, your flesh shall 
come again like the flesh of a little child. 

O this mercy of God! I am told it is an ocean. 
Then I place on it four swift sailing craft, with com¬ 
pass, and charts, and choice rigging, and skillful navi¬ 
gators, and I tell them to launch away, and discover for 
me the extent of this ocean. That craft puts out in one 
direction, and sails to the north; this to the south; this 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


31 


to the east; this to the west. They crowd on all their 
canvas, and sail ten thousand years, and one day come 
up the harbor of heaven, and I shout to them from the 
beach, “ Have you found the shore ?” and they answer, 
“Ho shore to God’s mercy!” Swift angels, dispatched 
from the throne, attempt to go across it. For a million 
years they fly and fly, but then come back and fold their 
wings at the foot of the throne, and cry, “ Ho shore! no 
shore to God’s mercy!” 

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy! I sing it. I preach it. I 
pray it. Here I find a man bound hand and foot to the 
devil, but with one stroke of the hammer of God’s truth 
the chains fall off and he is free forever. Mercy! Mer¬ 
cy ! Mercy ! There is no depth it can not fathom; there 
is no height it can not scale; there is no infinity it can 
not compass. I take my stand under this goodly cedar, 
and see the flocks flying thither. They are torn with the 
shot of temptation, and wounded, and sick, and scarred. 
Some fought with iron beak; some once feasted on car¬ 
casses ; some were fierce of eye and cruel of talon, but 
they came, flock after flock—“ all fowl of every wing.” 

Again: all the dying will find their nest in this goodly 
cedar. It is cruel to. destroy a bird’s nest; but Death 
does not hesitate to destroy one. There was a beautiful 
nest in the next street. Lovingly the parents brooded 
over it. There were two or three little robins in the 
nest. The scarlet fever thrust its hot hands into the 
nest, and the birds are gone. Only those are safe who 
have their nest in the goodly cedar. They have over 
them the “ feathers of the Almighty.” O to have those 
soft, warm, eternal wings stretched over us! Let the 
storms beat, and the branches of the cedar toss on the 


32 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


wind—no danger. When a storm comes, you can see 
the birds flying to the woods. Ere the storm of death 
comes down, let us fly to the goodly cedar. 

Of what great Varieties heaven will be made up! 
There come men who once were hard and cruel, and 
desperate in wickedness, yet now, soft and changed by 
grace, they come into glory: “All fowl of every wing.” 
And here they come, the children who were reared in 
loving home-circles, flocking through the gates of life: 
“ All fowl of every wing.” These were white, and came 
from Northern homes; these were black, and ascended 
from Southern plantations; these were copper-colored, 
and went up from Indian reservations: “ All fowl of 
every wing.” 

So God gathers them up. It is astonishing how easy 
it is for a good soul to enter heaven. A prominent 
business man in Philadelphia went home one afternoon, 
lay down on the lounge, and said, “ It is time for me to 
go.” He was very aged. His daughter said to him, 
“Are you sick 3” He said, “Ho; but it is time for me 
to go. Have John put it in two of the morning papers, 
that my friends may know that I am gone. Good-by;” 
and as quick as that, God had taken him. 

It is easy to go when the time comes. Tliel’e are no 
ropes thrown out to pull us ashore; there are no ladders 
let down to pull us up. Christ comes, and takes us by 
the hand, and says, “ You have had enough of this; come 
up higher.” Do you hurt a lily when you pluck it ? Is 
there any rudeness when Jesus touches the cheek, and 
the red rose of health whitens into the lily of immortal 
purity and gladness ? 

This is an autumnal Sabbath. In a few weeks sharp, 


FO WL OF E VEli Y WING. 


33 


shrill winds will blow up, and we will have the windows 
closed, and the giant of the woods will smite his anvil, 
and the leafy sparks will fly on the autumnal gale. Then 
there will be thousands of birds gathering in the tree at 
the corner of the field, just before departing to warmer 
climes, and they will call and sing until the branches 
drop with the melody. There is a better clime for us, 
and by-and-by we shall migrate. We gather in the 
branches of the goodly cedar, in preparation for depart¬ 
ure. You heard our voices in the opening song; you 
will hear them in the closing song—voices good, voices 
bad, voices happy, voices distressful—“ All fowl of every 
wing.” By-and-by we shall be gone. If all this audi¬ 
ence are saved—as I hope they will be—I see them en¬ 
tering into life. Some have had it hard; some have had 
it easy. Some were brilliant; some were dull. Some 
were rocked by pious parentage ; others had their infan¬ 
tile cheeks scalded with the tears of woe. Some crawled, 
as it were, into the kingdom on their hands and knees, 
and some seemed to enter in chariots of flaming fire. 
Those fell from a ship’s mast; these were crushed in the 
Avondale disaster. They are God’s singing-birds now. 
No gun of huntsman shall shoot them down. Tliey gath¬ 
er on the fcrees of life, and fold their wings on the branch¬ 
es ; and, far away from frosts, and winds, and night, they 
sing until the hills are flooded with joy, and the skies 
drop music, and the arches of pearl send back the echoes 
—“All fowl of every wing.” 

“Behold the saints, beloved of God, 

Washed are their robes in Jesus’ blood; 

Brighter than angels, lo! they shine, 

Their glories splendid and sublime. 

B 2 


34 


FOWL OF EVERY WING. 


“ Through tribulation great they came ; 

They bore the cross and scorned the shame 
Now, in the loving temple bless’d, 

With God they dwell; on him they rest. 

“ While everlasting ages roll, 

Eternal love shall feast their soul, 

And scenes of bliss, forever new, 

Rise in succession to their view. 

“ Oh! what a grand, exalted song, 

When every tribe and every tongue, # 
Redeemed by blood, with Christ appear, 
And join in one full chorus there! 

“ My soul anticipates the day, 

Would stretch her wings, and soar away, 
To aid the song, the palm to bear, 

And bow, the chief of sinners, there.” 


* 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


35 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 

‘ 4 When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with his pen¬ 
knife .”—Jeremiah xxxvi., 23. 

W E look in upon a room in Jerusalem. Two men 
are there. At the table sits Baruch the scribe, 
with a roll of parchment and an iron pen in his hand. 
The other man is walking the floor, as if strangely agi¬ 
tated. There is an unearthly appearance about his coun¬ 
tenance, and his whole frame quakes as if pressed upon 
by something unseen 'and supernal. It is Jeremiah, in 
the spirit of prophecy. Being too much excited to write 
with his own hand the words that the Almighty pours 
upon his mind about the destruction of Jerusalem, he 
dictates to Baruch the scribe. It is a seething, scalding, 
burning denunciation of Jehoiakim, the king, and a 
prophecy of coming disasters. 

Of course, Jehoiakim the king hears of the occur¬ 
rence, and he sends Jehudi to obtain the parchment and 
read its contents. 

It is winter. Jehoiakim is sitting in his comfortable 
winter house by a fire that glows upon the hearth, and 
lights up the faces of the lords, and princes, and senators 
who have gathered to hear the strange document. Si¬ 
lence is ordered. The royal circle bend forward to 
listen. Every eye is fixed. Jehudi unrolls the book 
gleaming with the words of God, and as he reads the 
king frowns; his eye kindles; his cheek burns; his foot 


36 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


comes down with thundering indignation. He snatches 
the book from Jeliudi’s hand, feels for his knife, crum¬ 
ples up the book, and goes to work cutting it up with his 
penknife. 

Thus God’s book was permanently destroyed, and the 
king escaped. Was it destroyed? Did he escape? In 
a little while King Jehoiakim’s dead body is hurled forth 
to blacken in the sun, and the only epitaph he ever had 
was that which Jeremiah wrote: “ Buried with the 
burial of an ass f while, to restore the book which was 
destroyed, Baruch again takes his seat at the table, and 
Jeremiah walks the floor and again dictates the terrible 
prophecy. 

It would take more penknives than cutler ever sharp¬ 
ened to hew into permanent destruction the Word of 
God. He who shoots at this eternal rock will feel the 
bullet rebound into his own torn and lacerated bosom. 
When the Almighty goes forth armed with the thunder¬ 
bolts of his power, I pity any Jehoiakim who attempts 
to fight him with a penknife. 

That Oriental scene has vanished, but it has been often 
repeated. There are thousands of Jehoiakims yet alive 
who cut the Word of God with their penknives, and my 
object in this sermon is to designate a few of them. 

The first man I shall mention as thus treating the 
Word of God is the one who receives a jpart of the Bi¬ 
ble, but cuts out portions of it with his penknife and 
rejects them. Jehoiakim showed as much indignity to¬ 
ward the scroll when he cut one way as when he cut the 
other. You might as well behead Moses as to behead 
Jonah. Yes, sir, I shall take all of the Bible or none. 
Men laugh at us as if we were the most gullible people 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


37 


in the world for believing in the genuineness of the 
Scriptures; but there can be no doubt that the Bible, as 
we have it, is the -same—no more, no less—as God wrote 
it. As to the books of the New Testament, the great 
writers of the different centuries give complete cata¬ 
logues of their contents. Polycarp, Ignatius, Clemens 
Pom anus, in the first century, give a catalogue of the 
New Testament books; Tertullian, Justin Martyr, in the 
second century; Cyprian and Origen in the third cen¬ 
tury ; Augustine, Jerome, and Eusebius in the fourth 
century. Their catalogues .of the different books of the 
New Testament silence the suggestion that any new 
books could have been stealthily put in. . How many 
books are on this stand ? You say three—two Bibles 
and a hymn-book. There are twenty men here taking a 
list of these books. Would it be possible for any man 
to come on to this platform and lay a new book on this 
stand and you not know it \ Neither w*as it possible for 
any body to put an additional book into this New Testa¬ 
ment when all the Christian world was w r atching. 

As to the books of the Old Testament, Christ sanc¬ 
tioned them by commending them to the Jews. If any 
part of the Old Testament had been uninspired, Christ 
would have said, “ Search the Scriptures, all except that 
book of Jonah,” or “ Search the Scriptures, excepting 
the book of Esther.” When Christ commends the canon 
of the Old Testament Scriptures to the people, he affirms 
its genuineness. There never could have been any in¬ 
terpolations in the Bible, for the Jews were constantly 
watching, and there were men whose lifetime business it 
was to attend to the keeping of the Scriptures unadul¬ 
terated. Besides this, the Bible has always had enemies. 


. 38 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


If there had been any attempt at interpolation, Celsus in 
the second century, and Porphyry in the fourth century, 
would have proclaimed it. Yet they never even hinted 
at any thing like a w T ant of genuineness, although they 
despised the book. Far easier would it be for a man in 
this day to insert a long paragraph in the Farewell Ad¬ 
dress of Washington, or an entire canto in Milton’s Par¬ 
adise Lost , than it would have been for any man at any 
time to insert a foreign, uninspired book in the Bible. 

Ho, sir; I shall take all of the Bible or none. A man . 
dies, having made a will. The people who expect a part 
of the inheritance assemble to hear the will read. The 
attorney reads it until he comes to a certain passage of 
the will, w T hen one of the heirs cries out, “ I reject that 
passage.” The attorney reads on, and some one else 
says, “ I reject that passage, while I accept all of the rest 
of the will.” The heirs go before the surrogate, and the 
judge decides: “You must take this will as a whole or 
not at all. You can not break a part of it, and leave the 
rest intact.” How I say in regard to this Will of my 
Father, in respect to this last Will and Testament of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that if we break any part of the Will 
w r e break it all, and we lose our inheritance and go beg¬ 
gared through eternity. 

By some shaft from hell, let the sun be cleft in twain, 
until, with shorn locks and dimmed eye, he stumbles his 
w T ay through the heavens; but shear not this glorious old 
Bible of a single lock. The same infernal explosion that 
sent up into fragments a single book would shock the 
whole system of truth. Fire one house in a solid square, 
and into the wdiole block you hurl fiery destruction. 
Take one star from a whirling constellation, and the 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


39 . 

wheel of fire would crush on the highway of light; and 
remove one orb from this constellation of Bible-books 
that revolve in splendor about Jesus, the central Sun, 
and heaven itself would shriek at the catastrophe, amid 
the weeping of a God ! 

No, sir; you shall not rob me of a single word, of a 
single verse, of a single chapter of a single book of my 
Bible. When life, like an ocean, billows up with trouble, 
and death comes, and our bark is sea-smitten, with hal¬ 
yards cracked and white sails flying in shreds, lfke a 
maniac’s gray locks in the wind, then we will want God’s 
Word to steer us off the rocks, and shine like light-houses 
through the dark channels of death, and with hands of 
light beckon our storm-tossed souls into the harbor. In 
that last hour take from me my pillow, take away all 
soothing draughts, take away the faces of family and 
kindred, take away every helping hand and every con¬ 
soling voice; alone let me die on the mountain, on a bed 
of rock, covered only by a sheet of embroidered frost, 
under the slap of the night-wind, and breathing out my 
life on the bosom of the wild, wintry blast, rather than 
in that last hour take from me my Bible. ' Stand off, 
then, ye carping, clipping, meddling critics, with your 
penknives! 

I. can think of only one right way in which the Bible 
may be divided. A minister went into a house, and saw 
a Bible on the stand, and said, “ What a pity that this 
Bible should be so torn ! you do not seem to take much 
care of it. Half the leaves are gone.” Said the man, 
“This was my mother’s Bible, and my brother John 
wanted it, and I wanted it, and we could not agree about 
the matter, and so we each took a half. My half has 


40 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


been blessed to my soul, and bis half has been blessed to 
his soul.” That is the only way that I can think of in 
which the Word of God may be rightfully cut with a 
penknife. 

The next man that I shall mention as following Je- 
hoiakim’s example is the infidel, who runs his hnife 
through the Bible from Genesis to Bevelation , and re¬ 
jects every thing. The hostility existing that night in 
that winter-house among those lords and senators, exists 
yet. The enemies of this Book have gathered them¬ 
selves into clubs, and have tried to marshal on their side 
chemist’s laboratory, and astronomer’s telescope, and ge¬ 
ologist’s pry, and mineralogist’s hammer, and ornitholo¬ 
gist’s gun; and they have ransacked the earth and the 
heavens to see if they could not find arguments with 
which to refute the Bible, and balk the Church, and clip 
the wing of the Apocalyptic angel. With the black 
hulk of their pirate craft they have tried to run down 
this Gospel ship speeding on errands of salvation. They 
have tried to stab patriarch and prophet, evangelist and 
apostle, with Jehoiakim’s penknife. They say that the 
Bible is a very weak book, filled with big stories and 
Munchausen adventures, and has no more authority than 
the Sliaster of the Hindoo, or the Zend-Avesta of the 
Persian, or the Talmud of the Hebrew, or the Conf ucian 
writings of the Chinese, or the Sibylline books of the 
Homans, or the Koran of the Mohammedans. 

Men strike their knife through this Book because they 
say that the light of nature is sufficient. Indeed! Have 
the fire-worshipers of India, cutting themselves with lan¬ 
cets until the blood spurts at every pore, found the light 
of nature sufficient ? Has the Bornesian cannibal, gnaw- 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE 


41 


ing the roasted flesh from human bones, found the light 
of nature sufficient ? Has the Chinese woman, with her 
foot cramped and deformed into a cow’s hoof, found the 
light of nature sufficient ? Could the ancients see heaven 
from the heights of Ida or Olympus ? Ho! I call upon 
the pagodas of superstition, the Brahminic tortures, the 
infanticide of the Ganges, the bloody wheels of the Jug¬ 
gernaut, to prove that the light of nature is not sufficient. 
A star is beautiful, but it pours no light into the mid¬ 
night of a sinful soul. The flower is sweet, but it exudes 
no balm for the heart’s wound. All the odors that ever 
floated from royal conservatory, or princely hanging-gar¬ 
dens, give not so much sweetness as is found in one waft 
from this Scripture mountain of myrrh and frankincense. 
All the waters that ever leaped in torrent, or foamed in 
cascade, or fell in summer shower, or hung in morning 
dew, gave no such coolness to the fevered soul as the 
smallest drop that ever flashed out from the showering 
fountains of this divine Book. If you like the light of 
nature better than that of revelation, why do you not go 
and root in the ground with the Hottentot; or go ride 
with the Laplander behind a team of dogs; or go help 
the Mexican pick cochineal; or go help the Arabs lasso 
the wild horse; or the Turk hunt for gall-nuts and meer¬ 
schaum. I bring China, and India, and Siberia, and Ethi¬ 
opia, and Tartary, and Hew Holland, and Persia, and 
Hindostan, to prove,Before all the hosts of hell, and the 
armies of heaven, and the nations of the earth, that the 
light of nature is not sufficient. “ What must I do to he 
saved f” Sweltering nations have knelt at the feet of 
the Himalayan Mountains for ages asking that question, 
but the mountains made no response. Hot one of the 


42 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


old peaks stooped down to lift a single soul on its shoul¬ 
der into the heavens. Still the people cry, and still the 
mountains are silent—■“ What must I do to be saved?” 
Nations, in blindness and death, have knelt on the beach 
of the Persian Gulf, and Bengal Bay, and Caspian Sea, 
moaning out that question, but there was nothing in all 
the tumbling surf that responded. The wdnds mocked, 
and the waves spit their spray into the face of the dying 
nations. And so the cry went round the world, but the 
desert spoke not, and the Alps were silent, and the stars 
were dumb, and all the caverns, and hills, and seas but 
echoed back the dismal cry, “ What must I do to be 
saved f ” The light of nature is not sufficient. 

Infidels strike their penknife through this Book be¬ 
cause they say that it is cruel and indecent. There are 
things in Ezekiel and Solomon’s Songs that they don’t 
want read in their families. All! if the Bible is so per¬ 
nicious, just show me somebody that has been spoiled by 
it. A thousand dollars reward if you will show me a 
man who has been made cruel, or obscene, or reckless by 
the Bible. While you are trying in vain to pick out such 
a one, I will show you five hundred men in this audience 
who have by it been tamed out of rudeness, and lifted 
up out of sin, and enriched with innumerable virtues. 

Again, they strike their penknife through this Bible 
because it is so full of unexplained mysteries. What! 
will you not believe any thing you can not explain ? Have 
you finger-nails? You say “Yes.” Explain why, on the 
tip of your finger, there comes a nail. You can not tell 
me. You believe in the law of gravitation; explain it, 
if you can. I can ask you a hundred questions about 
your eyes, about your ears, about your face, about your 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


43 


feet, that you can not answer, and yet you find fault 
that I can not answer all the questions you may ask about 
this Bible. I would not give a farthing for the Bible if 
I could understand every thing in it. I would know 
that the heights and depths of God’s truth were not very 
great if, with my poor, finite mind, I could reach every 
thing. A plain farmer said to a skeptic, “ The mysteries 
of the Bible do not bother me. I read the Bible as I 
eat fish. In eating fish, when I come across a bone, I do 
not try to swallow it, but I lay it one side. When, in 
reading the prophecies, I come across that which is in¬ 
explicable, I say , 4 There is a bone,’ and I lay it one side. 
When I find something in a doctrine that staggers my 
reason, I say, £ That is a bone,’ and I lay it one side.” 
Alas! my friends, that men should choke themselves to 
death with bones of mystery, when there is so much 
meat in this Bible on which the soul may get strong for 
eternity. 

Again, the infidel strikes his penknife through this 
Book because, he says, if it were-God’s booJc, the whole 
world would have it. He says that it is not to be sup¬ 
posed that if God had any thing to say to the world, he 
would say it only to the small part of the human race 
who actually possess the Bible. To this I reply that the 
fact that only a part of the race receives any thing is no 
ground for believing that God did not bestow it. Who 
made oranges and bananas ? You say, God. I ask, How 
can that be, when thousands of our race never saw an 
orange or a banana ? If God were going to give such 
things, why did he not give them to all ? The argument 
that the giving of the Bible to a part of the race would 
imply a wicked partiality on the part of God, and conse- 


44 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


quently that lie did not give it at all, would prove that 
he did not give oranges and bananas to the people of the 
tropics, for that would be partiality. The fact is that 
God has a right to do as he pleases, and he is constantly 
partial in a thousand things. Tie gives us a pleasant 
clime, while he gives earthquakes and tornadoes to Mex¬ 
ico. He gives incomputable harvests of wheat to Sicily, 
but scant berries and polar bears, and the ungainly wal¬ 
rus, to the Arctic inhabitants. He gives one man two 
good eyes, and to another none. He gives you two feet; 
to another man no feet at all. To you he gives per¬ 
petual health; to another man coughing consumption, or 
piercing pleurisy, or stinging gout, or fiery erysipelas. 
He does not treat us all alike. If all the human race 
had the same climate, the same harvests, the same health, 
the same advantages, then you might, by anology, argue 
that if he gave a Bible at all, he would give it to the 
whole race at the same time. If you say to me that the 
fact that the Bible is now in the possession of only a 
small part of the human family is proof that he did not 
send the Bible, then I say that the fact that only a part 
of the world has peaches and apples proves that God 
never made peaches and apples; and the fact that a part 
of the world has a mild, sunshiny climate, proves con¬ 
clusively that God does not make the climate. . Indeed, 
I will carry on your argument until I can prove that God 
made nothing at all; for there is not one single physical 
or intellectual blessing that we possess that has not been 
denied some one else. Ho! no ! Because God, in his 
sovereign mercy, has given us a book that some others do 
not possess, let us not be so ungrateful as to reject it— 
blowing out our own lantern because other people have 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


45 


not a light; rending off the splinters from our broken 
bone because other people have not been able to get a 
bandage; dashing our own Ship on a rock because other 
vessels have not a compass; cutting up our own Bible 
with a penknife because other people have not a revela¬ 
tion. 

Again, the infidel strikes his penknife through this 
Book by saying,“You have no right to make the Bible 
so prominent, because there are other books that have in 
them great beauty and value.” There are grand things 
in books professing no more than human intelligence. 
The heathen Bible of the Persians says, “ The heavens 
are a point from the pen of God’s perfection.” “ The 
world is a bud from the bower of his beauty.” “ The 
sun is a spark from the light of his wisdom.” “ The sky 
is a bubble on the sea of his power.” Beautiful! Beau¬ 
tiful ! Confucius taught kindness to enemies; the Shas- 
ter has great affluence of imagery; the Yeda of the 
Brahmins has ennobling sentiment; but what have you 
proved by all this % Simply that the Author of the Bible 
was as wise as all the great men that have e\'er lived put 
together; because, after you have gone through all lands, 
and all ages, and all literatures, and after you have heap¬ 
ed every thing excellent together and boiled it down, you 
have found in all that realm of all the ages but a portion 
of the wisdom that you find in this one book. 

The fact is that all the jar of hell’s battering-rams 
against this buttress of truth only proves the strength of 
the wall. All of the fleets of perdition have come sail¬ 
ing against this craft, managed by a few fishermen; but 
it has proved an iron-clad able to sink with a few strokes 
the armaments of infidelity. One little Kearsarge thun- 


46 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


dering to darkness and hell a thousand flaunting Ala- 
bamas. 

Let Voltaire come on with his acute philosophy; and 
Hume with his scholarship; and Chesterfield with his 
polished insinuations; and Gibbon with his one-sided 
historical statements; and Shaftesbury with his sarcasm; 
and Hobbes with his subtlety; and Blount and Boling- 
broke with their armed hostility—yea, come on, Platonic 
philosophers, and German infidels, and Boston transcend- 
entalists, and all ye helmeted sons of darkness—I charge 
upon you with a regiment of mountain shepherds and 
Galilee fishermen. Forward, ye inspired men, to the 
strife! Steady! Take aim! Fire! Their ranks wa¬ 
ver ! They break! They fly ! Victory, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ! 

I want no better proof of the divinity of this Book 
than the fact that it has withstood this mighty and con¬ 
tinuous attack, and come down to us without a chapter 
effaced, or a parable riddled, or a miracle injured, or a 
promise scarred. No other book could have lived an 
hour in such a sea; no other force could have stood un¬ 
der such cross-fire. This Book to-day is foremost. In 
philosophy, it is honored above the works of Descartes, 
Bacon, Aristotle, and Socrates. In history, it wins more 
respect than Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. In 
poetry, it outshines the Iliad and Odyssey , the Inferno , 
the Divina Commedia , and Paradise Lost. It has been 
published in more than two hundred languages. The 
earth quakes with the quick revolution of its printing- 
press. The best art has come to the illustration of its 
pages, to the adornment of its lids, to the setting of its 
type. Its scenes of glory and promise blossom on every 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


47 


wall, and thrill through the music of the oratorio and or¬ 
chestra. 

If infidelity is as successful in the next fifty years, in 
its war against the Bible, as it has been in the past fifty, 
the year 1950 will see the Bible in the possession of ev¬ 
ery man on the earth who has a hand to hold it. One 
wave of this Book above the throne of tyranny, and they 
shall fall; above the temples of superstition, and .they 
shall crumble; above the wilderness, and it shall bloom 
like the garden of the Lord. Thou Prince of Books, 
we hail thee to thy coronation! the wheeling earth thy 
chariot! the bending sky thy triumphal arch! the great 
heavens one star-studded, cloud-striped banner! 

Make* the application of this subject yourselves. I 
have preached it that I might show you that w T e wdio be¬ 
lieve in the Bible are not so verdant as people suppose, 
since we have a great many stout reasons for believing in 
it. I have tried, by my remarks, to raise the Book high¬ 
er in your estimation. Take it into your heart! Take 
it into your house! Take it into your shop! Take it 
into your store! Though you may seem to get along 
quite well without this Book in your days of prosperity, 
there will come a time to us all wdien our only consola¬ 
tion will be this blessed Gospel. 

A blind girl had been in the habit of reading her Bible 
by means of raised letters such as are prepared for the 
use of the blind; but after a while, by working in a fac¬ 
tory, the tips of her fingers became so calloused that she 
could no more by her hands read the precious promises. 
She cut off the tips of her fingers that her touch might 
be more sensitive; but still she failed with her hands to 
read the raised letters. In her sorrow, she took the 


48 


THE RECKLESS PENKNIFE. 


Bible and said, “ Farewell, my dear Bible. Yon have 
been the joy of my heart!” Then she pressed the open 
page to her lips, and kissed it, and as she did so she felt 
with her mouth the letters, “The Gosjpel according to St. 
Mark” “Thank God!” she said ; “if I can not read 
the Bible with my fingers, I can read it with my lips.” 

Oh! in that last hour when the 'world goes away from 
our grasp, press this precious Gospel to our lips, that, in 
that dying kiss, we may taste the sweetness of that prom¬ 
ise, “ When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not over¬ 
flow thee.” 


“ How precious is the Book divine, 

By inspiration given! 

Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine 
To guide our souls to heaven. 

“ This lamp through all the tedious night 
Of life shall guide our way, 

Till we behold the clearer light 
Of an eternal day.”. 


AS THE LEAF. 


49 


AS THE LEAF. 

“We all do fade as a leaf .”—Isaiah lxiv., 6. 

TT is so hard for us to understand religious truth that 
God constantly reiterates. As the schoolmaster takes 
a blackboard, and puts upon it figures and diagrams, so 
that the scholar may not only get his lesson through the 
ear, but also through the eye, so God takes all the truths of 
his Bible, and draws them out in diagram on the natural 
wdrld. Champollion, the famous Frenchman, went down 
into Egypt to study the hieroglyphics on monuments and 
temples. After much labor he deciphered them, and an¬ 
nounced to the learned world the result of his investiga¬ 
tions. The wisdom, goodness, and pow T er of God are 
written in hieroglyphics all over the earth and all over 
the heaven. God grant that we may have understand¬ 
ing enough to decipher them ! There are scriptural pas¬ 
sages, like my text, which need to be studied in the very 
presence of the natural world. Habakkuk says, “ Thou 
makest my feet like hind's feeta passage which means 
nothing save to the man that knows that the feet of the 
red deer, or hind, are peculiarly constructed, so that they 
can walk among slippery rocks -without falling. Know¬ 
ing that fact, we understand that, when Habakkuk says 
“ Thou makest my feet like hind's feet,” he sets forth 
that the Christian can walk amid the most dangerous 
and slippery places without falling. In Lamentations 
we read that “ The daughter of my people is cruel, like 
C 


50 


AS THE LEAF. 


Jfcr 


the ostriches of the wilderness;” a passage that has no 
meaning save to the man who knows that the ostrich 
leaves its egg in the sand to be hatched out by the sun, 
and that the young ostrich goes forth unattended by any 
maternal kindness. Knowing this, the passage is signifi¬ 
cant—“ The daughter of my people is cruel, like the os¬ 
triches of the wilderness.” 

Those know but little of the meaning of the natural 
world who have looked at it through the eyes of others, 
and from book or canvas taken their impression. There 
are some faces so mobile that photographists can not 
take them; and the face of Nature has such a flush, and 
sparkle, and life, that no human description can gather 
them. No one knows the pathos of a bird’s voice unless 
he has sat at summer evening-tide at the edge of a wood, 
and listened to the cry of the w T hippoorwill. 

There is to-day more glory in one branch of sumach 
than a painter could put on a whole forest of maples. 
God hath struck into the autumnal leaf a glance that 
none see but those who come face to face—the moun¬ 
tain looking upon the man, and the man*looking upon 
the mountain. 

For several autumns I made a lecturing expedition to 
the Far West, and one autumn, about this time, saw that 
which I shall never forget. I have seen the autumnal 
sketches of Cropsey’s and other skillful pencils, but that 
week I saw a pageant two thousand miles long. Let 
artists stand back when God stretches his canvas! A 
grander spectacle was never kindled before mortal eyes. 
Along by the rivers, and up and down the sides of the 
great hills, and by the banks of the lakes, there was an 
indescribable mingling of gold, and orange, and crimson, 


AS THE LEAF. 


51 


and saffron, now sobering into drab and maroon, now 
flaming up into solferino and scarlet. Here and there 
the trees looked as if just their tips had blossomed into 
fire. In the morning light the forests seemed as if they 
had been transfigured, and in the evening hour they 
looked as if the sunset had burst and dropped upon the 
leaves. In more sequestered spots, where the frosts had 
been hindered in their work, we saw the first kindling 
of the flames of color in a lowly sprig; then they rushed 
up from branch to branch, until the glory of the Lord 
submerged the forest. Here you would find a tree just 
making up its mind to change, and there one looked as 
if, wounded at every pore, it stood bathed in carnage. 
Along the banks of Lake Huron there were hills over 
which there seemed pouring cataracts of fire, tossed up, 
and down, and every whither by the rocks. Through 
some of the ravines we saw occasionally a foaming stream, 
as though it were rushing to pnt out the conflagration. 
If at one end of the woods a commanding tree would set 
up its crimson banner, the whole forest prepared to fol¬ 
low. If God’s urn of colors were not infinite, one swamp 
that I saw along the Maumee would have exhausted it 
forever. It seemed as if the sea of divine glory had 
dashed its surf to the tip top of the Alleghanies, and then 
it had come dripping down to lowest leaf and deepest 
cavern. 

Most persons preaching from this text find only in it 
a vein of sadness. I find that I have two strings to this 
Gospel harp—a string of sadness, and a string of joy in¬ 
finite. 

“ We all do fade as a leaf.” 

First. Like the foliage, we fade gradually . The leaves 


52 


AS THE LEAF. 


which, week before last, felt the frost, have, day by day, 
been changing in tint, and will for many days yet cling 
to the bough, waiting for the fist of the s wind to strike 
them. Suppose you that this leaf that I hold in my hand 
took on its color in an hour, or in a day, or in a week ? 
No. ’ Deeper and deeper the flush, till all the veins of 
its life now seem opened and bleeding away. After a 
while, leaf after leaf, they fall. Now those on the outer 
branches, then those most hidden, until the last spark of 
the gleaming forge shall have been quenched. 

So gradually we pass away. From day to day we 
hardly see the change. But the frosts have touched us. 
The work of decay is going on. Now a slight cold. 
Now a season of over-fatigue. Now a fever. Now a 
stitch in the side. Now a neuralgic thrust. Now a 
rheumatic twinge. Now a fall. Little by little. Fain 
by pain. Less steady of limb. Sight not so clear. Ear 
not so alert. After a while we take a staff. Then, aft¬ 
er much resistance, we come to spectacles. Instead of 
bounding into the vehicle, we are willing to be helped in. 
At last the octogenarian falls. Forty years of decaying. 
No sudden change. No fierce cannonading of the bat¬ 
teries of life; but a fading away — slowly — gradually. 
As the leaf! As the leaf ! 

Again: Like the leaf we fade, to make room for oth¬ 
ers. Next year’s forests will be as grandly foliaged as 
this. There are other generations of oak leaves to take 
the place of those which this autumn perish. Next May 
the cradle of the wind will rock the young buds. The 
woods will be all a-hum with the chorus of leafy voices. 
If the tree in front of your house, like Elijah, takes a 
chariot of fire, its mantle will fall upon Elisha. If, in 


AS THE LEAF. 


53 


the blast of these autumnal batteries, so many ranks fall, 
there are reserved forces to take their place to defend 
the fortress of the hills. The beaters of gold leaf will 
have more gold leaf to beat. The crown that drops to¬ 
day from the head of the oak will be picked up and 
handed down for other kings to wear. Let the blasts 
come. They only make room for other life. 

So, when we go, others take our spheres. We do not 
grudge the future generations their places. We will 
have had our good time. Let them come on and have 
their good time. There is no sighing among these leaves 
at my feet because other leaves are to follow them. Aft¬ 
er a lifetime of preaching, doctoring, selling, sewing, or 
digging, let us cheerfully give way for those who come 
on to do the preaching, doctoring, selling, sewing, and 
digging. God grant that their life may be brighter than 
ours has been! As we get older, do not let us be affront¬ 
ed if young men and women crowd us a little. We will 
have had our day, and we must let them have theirs. 
When our voices get cracked, let us not snarl at those 
who can warble. When our knees are stiffened, let us 
have patience with those who go fleet as the deer. Be¬ 
cause our leaf is fading, do not let us despise the unfrost¬ 
ed. Autumn must not envy the Spring. Old men must 
be patient with boys. Dr. Guthrie, the other day, stood 
up in Scotland and said, “ You need not think I am old 
because my hair is white; I never was so young as I am 
now.” I look back to my childhood days, and remember 
when, in winter nights, in the sitting-room, the children 
played, the blithest and the gayest of all the company 
were father and mother. Although reaching fourscore 
years of age, they never got old. 


54 


AS THE LEAF. 


Do not be disturbed as you see good and great men 
die. People worry when some important personage 
passes off the stage, and say, “ His place will never be 
taken.” But neither the Church nor the State will suf¬ 
fer for it. There will be others to take the places. 
When God takes one man away, he has another right 
back of him. God is so rich in resources that he could 
spare five thousand Summerfields and Paysons, if there 
were so many. There will be other leaves as green, as 
exquisitely veined, as gracefully etched, as well-pointed. 
However prominent the place we fill, our death will not 
jar the world. One falling leaf does not shake the Adi- 
rondacks. A ship is not well manned unless there be an 
extra supply of hands—some working on deck; some 
sound asleep in their hammocks? God has manned this 
world very well. There wfill be other seamen on deck 
when you and I are down in the cabin, sound asleep in 
the hammocks. 

Again: As with the leaves, we fade and fall amid myr¬ 
iads of others. One can not count the number of plumes 
which these frosts are plucking from the hills. They 
will strew all the streams; they will drift into the cav¬ 
erns ; they will soften' the wild beast’s lair, and fill the 
eagle’s eyrie. 

All the aisles of the forest will be covered with their 
carpet, and the steps of the hills glow with a wealth of 
color and shape that will defy the looms of Axminster. 
What urn could hold the ashes of all these dead leaves ? 
Who could count the hosts that burn on this funeral pyre 
of the mountains ? 

So we die in concert. The clock that strikes the hour 
of our going will sound the going of many thousands. 


AS THE LEAF. 


55 


Keeping step with the feet of those who carry us out 
will be the tramp of hundreds doing the same errand. 
Between fifty and seventy people every day lie down in 
Greenwood. That place has one hundred and fifty-three 
thousand of the dead. I said to the man at the gate, 
“ Then if there are a hundred and fifty-three thousand 
here, you must have the largest cemetery.” lie said 
there were two Homan Catholic cemeteries in the city, 
each of which had more than this. We all are dying. 
London and Pekin are not the great cities of the world. 
The grave is the great city. It hath mightier popula¬ 
tion, longer streets, brighter lights, thicker darknesses. 
Caesar is there, and all his subjects. Kero is there, and 
all his victims. City of kings and paupers! It has swal¬ 
lowed up in its immigrations Thebes, and Tyre, and 
Babylon, and will swallow all our cities. Yet, City of 
Silence. Ho voice. Ho hoof. Ho wheel. Ho clash. 
Ho smiting of hammer. Ho clack of flying loom. Ho 
jar. Ho whisper. Great City of Silence ! Of all its 
million million hands, not one of them is lifted. Of all 
its million million eyes, not one of them sparkles. Of 
all its million million hearts, not one pulsates. The liv¬ 
ing are in small minority. 

If, in the movement of time, some great question be¬ 
tween the living and the dead should be put, and God 
called up all the dead and the living to decide it as we 
lifted our hands, and from all the resting-places of the 
dead they lifted their hands, the dead would outvote us. 
Why, the multitude of the dying and the dead are as 
these autumnal leaves drifting under .our feet to-day. 
We march on toward eternity, not by companies of a 
hundred, or regiments of a, thousand, or battalions of ten 


56 


AS THE LEAF. 


thousands, but one thousand million abreast! Marching 
on ! Marching on ! 

Again: As with variety of appearance the leaves de¬ 
part , so do we. You have noticed that some trees, at 
the first touch of the frost, lose all their beauty; they 
stand withered, and uncomely, and ragged, waiting for 
the northeast storm to drive them into the mire. The 
sun shining at noonday gilds them with no beauty. 
Ragged leaves ! Dead leaves! No one stands to study 
them. They are gathered in no vase. They are hung 
on no wall. So death smites many. There is no beauty 
in their departure. One sharp frost of sickness, or one 
blast off the cold waters, and they are gone. No tinge 
of hope. No prophecy of heaven. Their spring was 
all abloom with bright prospects; their summer thick 
foliaged with opportunities; but October came, and 
their glory went. Frosted ! In early autumn the frosts 
come, but do not seem to damage vegetation. They are 
light frosts. But some morning you look out of the 
window and say, “ There was a Hack frost last night,” 
and you know that from that day every thing will wither. 
So men seem to get along without religion, amid the 
annoyances and vexations of life that nip them slightly 
here and nip them there. But after a while death comes. 
It is a black frost, and all is ended. 

Oh! what withering and scattering death makes 
among those not prepared to meet it! They leave every 
thing pleasant behind them—their house, their families, 
their friends, their books, their pictures f and step out of 
the sunshine into the shadow. They hang their harps 
on the willow, and trudge away into everlasting captiv¬ 
ity. They quit the presence of bird, and bloom, and 


AS THE LEAF. 


57 

wave, to go unbeckoned and unwelcomed. The bower 
in which they stood, and sang, and wove chaplets, and 
made themselves merry, has gone down under an awful 
equinoctial. No funeral bell can toll one half the dole¬ 
fulness of their condition. Frosted ! 

But thank God that is not the way people always die. 
Tell me, on what day of all the year the leaves of the 
woodbine are as bright as they are to-day ? So Chris¬ 
tian character is never so attractive as in the dying hour. 
Such go into the grave, not as a dog, with frown and 
harsh voice, driven into a kennel, but they pass away 
calmly , brightly , sweetly , grandly ! As the leaf! . As 

THE LEAF ! 

Why go to the death-bed of distinguished men, when 
there is hardly a house on this street but from it a Chris¬ 
tian has departed ? When your baby died there were 
enough angels in the room to have chanted a coronation. 
When your father died you sat watching, and after a 
while felt of his wrist, and then put your hand under 
his arm to see if there were any warmth left, and placed 
the mirror to the mouth to see if there were any sign of 
breathing; and when all was over, you thought how 
grandly he slept!—a giant resting after a battle. Oh! 
there are many Christian death-beds. The chariots of 
God, come to take his children home, are speeding every 
whither. This one halts at the gate of the almshouse; 
that one at the gate of princes. The shout of captives 
breaking their chains comes on the morning air. The 
heavens ring again and again with the coronation. The 
twelve gates of heaven are crowded with the ascending 
righteous. I see the accumulated glories of a thousand 
Christian death-beds—an autumnal forest illumined by 
C 2 


58 


AS THE LEAF. 


an autumnal sunset. They died not in shame, but in 
triumph! As the leaf! As the leaf ! 

Lastly: As the leaves fade and fall only to rise, so do 
we. All this golden shower of the woods is making the 
ground richer, and in the juice, and sap, and life of the 
tree the leaves will come up again. Next May the south 
wind will blow the resurrection trumpet, and they will 
rise. So we fall in the dust only to rise again. “ The 
hour is coming when all who are in their graves shall 
hear His voice and come forth.” It would be a horrible 
consideration to think that our bodies were always to lie 
in the ground. However beautiful the flowers you plant 
there, we do not want to make our everlasting residence 
in such a place. 

I have with these eyes seen so many of the glories of 
the natural world, and the radiant faces of my friends, 
that I do not want to think that when I close them in 
death I shall never open them again. It is sad enough 
to have a hand or foot amputated. In a hospital, after 
a soldier had had his hand taken off, he said, “ Good-by, 
dear old hand, you have done me a great deal of good 
service,” and burst into tears. It is a more awful thing 
to think of having the whole body amputated from the 
soul forever. I must have my body again, to see with, 
to hear with, to walk with. With this hand I must clasp 
the hand of my loved ones when I have passed clean 
over Jordan, and with it wave the triumphs of my King. 
Aha! we shall rise again—we shall rise again. As the 
leaf! As the leaf ! 

Crossing the Atlantic the ship may founder, and our 
bodies be eaten by the sharks; but God tameth Levia¬ 
than, and we shall come again. In awful explosion of 


AS THE LEAF. 


59 


factory boiler our bodies may be shattered into a hun¬ 
dred fragments in the air; but God watches the disaster, 
and we shall come again. He will drag the deep, and 
ransack the tomb, and upturn the wilderness, and torture 
the mountain, but He will find us, and fetch us out and 
up to judgment and to victory. We shall come up with 
perfect eye, with perfect hand, with perfect foot, and 
with perfect body. All our weaknesses left behind. 

We fall, but we rise! We die, but we live again! 
We moulder away, but we come to higher unfolding! 
As the leaf! As the leaf ! 


60 


THE WONDERFUL. 


THE WONDERFUL. 

“ His name shall be called Wonderful .”—Isaiah ix., 6. 

HPHE prophet lived in a dark time. For some three 
thousand years the world had been getting worse. 
Kingdoms had arisen and perished. As the captain of 
a vessel in distress sees relief coming across the water, 
so the prophet, amid the stormy times in which he lived, 
put the telescope of prophecy to his eye, and saw, seven 
hundred and fifty years ahead, one Jesus advancing to 
the rescue. 

I want to show that when Isaiah called Christ the 
Wonderful, he spoke wisely. 

In most houses there is a picture of Christ. Some¬ 
times it represents him with face effeminate; sometimes 
with a face despotic. I have seen West’s grand sketch of 
the rejection of Christ; I have seen the face of Christ 
as cut on an emerald, said to be by command of Julius 
Caesar; and yet I am convinced that I shall never know 
how Jesus looked until, on that sweet Sabbath morning, 
I shall wash the last sleep from my eyes in the cool river 
of heaven. I take up this book of divine photographs, 
and I look at Luke’s sketch, at Mark’s sketch, at John’s 
sketch, and at Paul’s sketch, and I say, with Isaiah, 
“ Wonderful!” 

I think that you are all interested in the story of 
Christ. You feel that he is the only one who can help 
you. You have unbounded admiration for the com- 


THE WONDERFUL. 


61 


mander who helped his passengers ashore while he him¬ 
self perished, but have you no admiration for him who 
rescued our souls, himself falling back into the waters 
from which he had saved us ? 

Christ was wonderful in the magnetism of his person. 

After the battle of Antietam, when a general rode 
along the lines, although the soldiers were lying down 
exhausted, they rose with great enthusiasm and huzzaed. 
As Napoleon returned from his captivity, his first step 
on the wharf shook all the kingdoms, and two hundred 
and fifty thousand men joined his standard. It took 
three thousand troops to watch him in his exile. So 
there have been men of wonderful magnetism of person. 
But hear me while I tell you of a poor young man who 
came up from Nazareth to produce a thrill such as has 
never been excited by any other. Napoleon had around 
him the memories of Austerlitz, and Jena, and Badajos; 
but here was a man who had fought no battles; who 
wore no epaulettes; who brandished no sword. He is 
no titled man of the schools, for he never went to school. 
He had probably never seen a prince, or shaken hands 
with a nobleman. The only extraordinary person we 
know of as being in his company was his own mother, 
and she was so poor that in the most delicate and solemn 
hour that ever comes to a woman’s soul she was obliged 
to lie down amid camel-drivers grooming the beasts of 
burden. 

I imagine Christ one day standing in the streets of Je¬ 
rusalem. A man descended from high lineage is stand¬ 
ing beside him, and says, “ My father was a merchant 
prince ; he had a castle on the beach at Galilee. Who 
was your father ?” Christ answers, “ Joseph, the car- 


62 


THE WONDERFUL. 


penter.” A man from Athens is standing there unroll¬ 
ing his parchment of graduation, and says to Christ, 
“ Where did you go to school ?” Christ answers, “ I nev¬ 
er graduated.” Aha! the idea of such an unheralded 
young man attempting to command the attention of the 
world! As well some little fishing village on Long Isl¬ 
and shore attempt to arraign New York. Yet no sooner 
does he set his foot in the towns or cities of Judea than 
every thing is in commotion. The people go out on a 
picnic, taking only food enough for a day, yet are so fas¬ 
cinated with Christ that, at the risk of starving, they fol¬ 
low him out into the wilderness. A nobleman falls down 
flat before him, and says, “ My daughter is dead.” A 
beggar tries to rub the dimness from his eyes, and says, 
“ Lord, that my eyes may be opened.” A poor, sick, 
panting woman presses through the crowd, and says, “ I 
must touch the hem of his garment.” Children, who 
love their mother better than any one else, struggle to 
get into his arms, and to kiss his cheek, and to run their 
fingers through his hair, and for all time putting Jesus 
so in love with the little ones that there is hardly a nur¬ 
sery in Christendom from which he does not take one, 
saying, “ I must have them; I will fill heaven with these; 
for every cedar that I plant in heaven I will have fifty 
wdiite lilies. In the hour wdien I was a poor man in Ju¬ 
dea they were not ashamed of me, and now that I have 
come to a throne I do not despise them. Hold it not 
back, oh weeping mother; lay it on my warm heart. Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven.” 

What is this coming down the road ? A triumphal 
procession. He is seated, not in a chariot, but on an ass; 
and yet the people take off their coats and throw them in 


THE WONDERFUL. 


63 


the way. Oli, what a time Jesus made among the chil¬ 
dren, among the beggars, among the fishermen, among 
the philosophers! You may boast of self-control, but if 
you had seen him you would have put your arms around 
his neck and said, “ Thou art altogether lovely.” 

Jesus was wonderful in the opposites and seeming an¬ 
tagonisms of his nature. You want things logical and 
consistent, and you say, “ How could Christ be God and 
man at the same time ?” John says Christ was the Crea¬ 
tor : “ All things were made by him, and without him 
was not any thing made.” Matthew says that he was 
omnipresent: “ Where tw T o or three are met together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Christ de¬ 
clares his own eternity: “I am Alpha and Omega.” 
How can he be a lion, under his foot crushing kingdoms, 
and yet a lamb licking the hand that slays him? At 
what point do the throne and the manger touch? If 
Christ was God, wh^flee into Egypt? Why not stand 
his ground ? Why, instead of bearing the cross, not lift 
up his right hand and crush his assassins ? Why stand 
and be spit upon ? Why sleep on the mountain, when he 
owned the palaces of eternity ? Why catch fish for his 
breakfast on the beach in the chill morning, when all 
the pomegranates are his, and all the vineyards his, and 
all the cattle his, and all the partridges his ? Why walk 
when weary, and his feet stone-bruised, when he might 
have taken the splendors of the sunset for his equipage, 
and moved with horses and chariots of fire ? Why beg 
a drink from the wayside, when out of the crystal chal¬ 
ices of eternity he poured the Euphrates, the Mississippi, 
and the Amazon, and dipping his hand in the fountains 
of heaven, and shaking that hand over the world, from 


64 


THE WONDERFUL. 


the tips of his fingers dripped the great lakes and the 
oceans ? Why let the Roman regiment put him to death, 
when he might have rode down the sky followed by all 
the cavalry of heaven, mounted on white horses of eter¬ 
nal victory ? 

You can not understand. Who can? You try to con¬ 
found me. I am confounded before you speak. Paul 
said it was unsearchable. He went climbing up from 
argument to argument, and from antithesis to antithesis, 
and from glory to glory, and then sank down in exhaus¬ 
tion as he saw far above him other heights of divinity 
unsealed, and exclaimed, u that in all things he might 
have the pre-eminence.” 

Again: Christ was wonderful in his teaching. The 
people had been used to formalities and technicalities; 
Christ upset all their notions as to how preaching ought 
to be done. There was this peculiarity about his preach¬ 
ing : the people knew what he me^nt. His illustrations 
were taken from the hen calling her chickens together; 
from salt; from candles; from fishing-tackle; from a 
hard creditor collaring a debtor. How few pulpits of 
this day would have allowed him entrance ? He would 
have been called undignified and familiar in his style 
of preaching. And yet the people went to hear him. 
Those old Jewish rabbis might have preached on the side 
of Olivet fifty years and never got an audience. The 
philosophers sneered at his ministrations and said, “ This 
will never do!” The lawyers caricatured, but the com¬ 
mon people heard him gladly. Suppose you that there 
were any sleepy people in his audiences ? Suppose you 
that any woman who ever mixed bread was ignorant of. 
what he meant when he compared the kingdom of heav- 


THE WONDERFUL. 


65 


en with leaven or yeast? Suppose yon that the sun¬ 
burned fishermen, with the fish-scales upon their hands, 
were listless when he spoke of the kingdom of heaven 
as a net? We spend three years in college studying 
ancfent mythology, and three years in the theological 
seminary learning how to make a sermon, and then we 
go out to save the world; and if we can not do it ac¬ 
cording to Claude’s Sermonizing, or Blair’s Rhetoric , or 
Karnes’s Criticism , we will let the world go to perdition. 
If we save nothing else, we will save Claude and Blair. 
We see a wreck in sight. We must go out and save the 
crew and passengers. We wait until we get on our fine 
cap and coat, and find our shining oars, and then we 
push out methodically and scientifically, while some 
plain shoresman, in rough fishing-smack, and with broken 
oar-lock, goes out and gets the crew and passengers, and 
brings them ashore in safety. We throw down our del¬ 
icate oars and say,“What a ridiculous thing to save men 
in that way! You ought to have done it scientifically 
and beautifully.” “ Ah!” says the shoresman, “ if those 
sufferers had waited until you got out your fine boat, 
they would have gone to the bottom.” 

The work of a religious teacher is to save men; and 
though every law of grammar should be snapped in the 
undertaking, and there be nothing but awkwardness and 
blundering in the mode, all hail to the man who saves a 
soul from death! 

Christ, in his preaching, was plain, earnest, and won¬ 
derfully sympathetic. We can not dragoon men into 
heaven. We can not drive them in with the butt-end of 
a catechism. We waste our time in trying to catch flies 
with acids instead of the sweet honeycomb of the Gos- 


66 


THE WONDERFUL. 


pel. We try to make crab-apples do the work of pome¬ 
granates. 

Again: Jesus was "wonderful* in his sorrows. The sun 
smote him, and the cold chilled him, the rain pelted him, 
thirst parched him, and hunger exhausted him. SITall I 
compare his sorrow to the sea ? No; for that is some¬ 
times hushed into a calm. Shall I compare it with the 
night ? No; for that sometimes gleams with Orion, or 
kindles with Aurora. If one thorn should be thrust 
through your temple, you would faint. But here is a 
whole crown made from the Ehamnus , or Sjpina Christi 
—small, sharp, stinging thorns. The mob make a cross. 
They put down the long beam, and on it they fasten a 
shorter beam. Got him at last. Those hands, that have 
been doing kindnesses and wiping away tears—hear the 
hammer driving the spikes through them. Those feet, 
that have been going about on ministrations of mercy— 
battered against the cross. Then they lift it up. Look ! 
look! look! Who will help him now ? Come, men of 
Jerusalem—ye whose dead he brought to life; ye whose 
sick he healed: who will help him seize the weapons of 
the soldiers? None to help! Having carried such a 
cross for us, shall we refuse to take our cross for him ? 

“Shall Jesus bear the cross alone, 

And all the world go free ? 

No; there’s a cross for every one, 

And there’s a cross for me.” 

You know the process of ingrafting. You bore a hole 
into a tree, and put in the branch of another tree. This 
tree of the cross was hard and rough, but into the holes 
where the nails went there have been grafted branches 
of the Tree of Life that now bear fruit for all the na- 


THE WONDERFUL. 


67 


tions. The original tree was bitter, but the branches in¬ 
grafted were sweet, and now all the nations pluck the 
fruit and live forever. 

Again: Christ was wonderful in bis victories. 

First—over the forces of nature. The sea is a crystal 
sepulchre. It swallowed the Central America , the Pres¬ 
ident, and the Spanish Armada as easily as any fly that 
ever floated on it. The inland lakes are fully as terri¬ 
ble in their wrath. Recent travelers tell us that Galilee, 
when aroused in a storm, is overwhelming; and yet that 
sea crouched in his presence and licked his feet. He 
knew all the waves and the wind. When he beckoned, 
they came. When he frowned, they fled. The heel of 
his foot made no indentation on the solidified water. 
Medical science has wrought great changes in rheumatic 
limbs and diseased blood, but when the muscles are en¬ 
tirely withered no human power can restore them, and 
when a limb is once dead, it is dead. But here is a 
paralytic—his hand lifeless. Christ says to him, “ Stretch 
forth thy hand!” and he stretches it forth. 

In the Eye Infirmary, how many diseases of that del¬ 
icate organ have been cured! But Jesus says to one 
lorn blind, “ Be open!” and the light of heaven rushes 
through gates that have never before been opened. The 
frost or an axe may kill a tree, but Jesus smites one dead 
with a word. 

Chemistry can do many wonderful things, but what 
chemist, at a wedding, when the refreshment gave out, 
could change a pail of water into a cask of wine ? 

What human voice could command a school of fish ? 
Yet here is a voice that marshals the scaly tribes, until 
in the place where they had let down the net and pulled 


68 


THE WONDERFUL. 


it up with no fish in it, they let it down again, and the 
disciples lay hold and begin to pull, when, by reason of 
the multitude of fish, the net brake. 

Nature is his servant. The flowers—he twisted them 
into his sermons; the winds—they were his lullaby when 
he slept in the boat; the rain—it hung glittering on the 
thick foliage of the parables; the star of Bethlehem—it 
sang a Christmas carol over his birth; the rocks—they 
beat a dirge at his death. 

Behold his victory over the grave! The hinges of the 
family vault become very rusty because they are never 
opened except to take another in. There is a knob on 
the outside of the door of the sepulchre, but none on the 
inside. Here comes the Conqueror of Death. He en¬ 
ters that realm and says, “ Daughter of Jairus, sit up 
and she sat up. To Lazarus, “ Come forthand he came 
forth. To the widow’s son he said, “ Get up from that 
bierand he goes home with his mother. Then Jesus 
snatched up the keys of death, and hung them to his 
girdle, and cried until all the grave-yards of the earth 
heard him, “ O Death! I will be thy plagues! O Grave! 
I will be thy destruction!” 

But Christ’s victories have only just begun. This 
world is his, and he must have it. What -is the matter 
in this country ? Why all these financial troubles ? There 
never will be a permanent peace in this land until Christ 
rules it. This land was discovered for Christ, and until 
our cities shall be evangelized, and north, south, east, 
and west shall acknowledge Christ as King and Redeem¬ 
er, w T e can not have permanent prosperity. What is the 
matter with Spain? with France? with' all of the na¬ 
tions ? All the congresses of the nations can not bring 


THE WONDERFUL. 


69 


quiet. All the Bismarcks and Gladstones of the world 
can not permanently settle things. When governments 
not only theoretically, but practically, acknowledge the 
Saviour of the world, there will be peace in the United 
States, peace in Spain, peace in France, peace in Ger¬ 
many, peace in Mexico, peace every where. In that day 
the sea will have more ships than now, but there will 
not be one “ man-of-war” The founderies of the world 
will jar with still mightier industries, but there will be 
no moulding of bullets. Printing-presses will fly their 
cylinders with greater speed, but there shall go forth no 
iniquitous trash. In laws, in constitutions, on exchange, 
in scientific laboratory, on earth as in heaven, Christ 
shall be called Wonderful. Let that work of the world’s 
regeneration begin in your heart, oh hearer! A Jesus so 
kind, a Jesus so good, a Jesus so loving—how can you 
help but love him ? 

It is a beautiful moment when two persons who have 
pledged each other, heart and hand, stand in church and 
have the banns of marriage proclaimed. Father and 
mother, brothers and sisters stand around the altar. The 
minister of Jesus gives the counsel; the ring is set; 
earth and heaven witness it; the organ sounds, and amid 
many congratulations they start out on the path of life 
together. 

Oh that this might be your marriage-day! Stand up, 
immortal soul. Thy Beloved comes to get his betrothed. 
Jesus stretches forth his hand and says, “ I will love thee 
with an everlasting love,” and you respond, “My Be¬ 
loved is mine, and I am Ilis.” I put your hand in Ilis; 
henceforth be one. Ho trouble shall part you—no time 
cool your love. Side by side on earth—side by side in 


70 


THE WONDERFUL. 


heaven! Now let the blossoms of heavenly gardens fill 
the house with their redolence, and all the organs of 
God peal forth the wedding march of eternity. 

Hark! “ The voice of my beloved! Behold, he com- 
eth leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.” 


THE VO TA GE TO HE A YEN. 


VI 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN * 

“And when we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship.”— 
Acts xxi., 6. 

P AUL was an old sailor—not from occupation, but 
from frequency of travel. I think he could have 
taken a vessel across the Mediterranean as well as some 
of the ship-captains. The sailors never scoffed at him 
for being a “ land-lubber.” If Paul’s advice had been 
taken, the crew would never have gone ashore at Melita. 

When the vessel went scudding under bare poles, Paul 
was the only self-possessed man on board; and, turning 
to the excited crew and despairing passengers, he ex¬ 
claims, in a voice that sounds above the thunder of the 
tempest and the wrath of the sea, “ Be of good cheer.” 

The men who now go to sea with maps, and charts, 
and modern compass, warned by buoy and light-house, 
know nothing of the perils of ancient navigation. Hor¬ 
ace said that the man who first ventured on the sea must 
have had a heart bound with oak and triple brass. Peo¬ 
ple then ventured only from headland to headland, and 
from island to island; and not until long after spread 
their sail for a voyage across the sea. Before starting, 
the weather was watched, and the vessel having been 
hauled up on the shore, the mariners placed their shoul¬ 
ders against the stern of the ship and heaved it off—they, 
at the last moment, leaping into it. Vessels were then 

* The last sermon before going to Europe. 


72 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


chiefly ships of burden—the transit of passengers being 
the exception; for the world was not then migratory as 
in our day, when the first desire of a man in one place 
seems to be to get into another place. 

The ship from which Jonah was thrown overboard, 
and that in which Paul was carried prisoner, went out 
chiefly with the idea of taking a cargo. 

As now, so then, vessels were accustomed to carry a 
flag. In those times it was inscribed with the name of a 
heathen deity. A vessel bound for Syracuse had on it 
the inscription “ Castor and Pollux.” The ships were 
provided with anchors. Anchors were of two kinds: 
those that were dropped into the sea, and those that 
were thrown up on to the rocks to hold the vessel fast. 
This last kind was what Paul alluded to when he said, 
“ Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both 
sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within 
the vail.” That was what the sailors call a hook-an¬ 
chor.” The rocks and sand-bars, shoals and headlands, 
not being mapped out, vessels carried a plumb-line. 
They would drop it and find the water fifty fathoms, and 
drop it again and find it forty fathoms, and drop it again 
and find it thirty fathoms, thus discovering their near 
approach to the shore. 

In the spring, summer, and autumn, the Mediterranean 
Sea was white with the wings of ships, but at the first 
wintry blast they hied themselves to the nearest harbor; 
although now the world’s commerce prospers in January 
as well as in June, and in mid-winter all over the wide 
and stormy deep, there float palaces of light, trampling 
the billows under foot, and showering the sparks of ter¬ 
rible furnaces on the wild wind; and the Christian pas- 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


73 


senger, tippeted and shawled, sits under the shelter of the 
smoke-stack, looking off upon the phosphorescent deep, 
on which is written in scrolls of foam and fire, “ Thy way, 
O God, is in the sea, and thy path in the great w T aters!” 

It is in those days of early navigation that I see a 
group of men, women, and children on the beach at 
Tyre. Paul is about to leave the congregation to whom 
he had preached, and they are come down to see him off. 
It is a solemn thing to part. There are so many traps 
that w T ait for a man’s feet. The solid ground may break 
through, and the sea—how many dark mysteries it hides 
in its bosom! A few counsels, a hasty good-by, a last 
look, and the ropes rattle, and the sails are hoisted, and 
the planks are hauled in, and Paul is gone. “ When we 
had taken our leave one of another, we took ship.” 

After long dreaming of foreign lands, I am about to 
leave you to satisfy that desire. Next Wednesday, at 
eight o’clock, I expect to embark for Europe. The emo¬ 
tions of this hour are not to be described. The joy of 
going is almost overborne, at this hour, by the sadness of 
parting. Yon have come to see. me off. I have made 
all my arrangements for going, and yet I am not ready 
to go until I have uttered, some counsels. Before I go I 
would like to see you all embark for heaven; and I have 
come here to-night to see you off. 

The Church is the dry-dock where souls are to be fit¬ 
ted out for heaven. In making a vessel for this voyage, 
the first need is sound timber. The floor-timbers ought 
to be of solid stuff. Eor the want of it, vessels that look¬ 
ed able to rufi their jib-booms into the eye of any tem¬ 
pest, when caught in a storm have been crushed like a 
wafer. The truths of God’s word are what I mean by 


74 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


floor-timbers. Away with your lighter materials. Noth¬ 
ing but oaks, hewn in the forest of divine truth, are 
stanch enough for this craft. 

You must have Love for a helm, to guide and turn 
the craft. Neither Pride, nor Ambition, nor Avarice 
will do for a rudder. Love, not only in the heart, but 
flashing in the eye, and tingling in the hand—Love mar¬ 
ried to work, which many look upon as so homely a 
bride—Love, not like brooks which foam and rattle, yet 
do nothing, but Love like a river, that runs up the steps 
of mill-wheels, and works in the harness of factory bands 
—Love, that will not pass by on the other side, but visits 
the man who fell among thieves near Jericho, not mere¬ 
ly saying Poor fellow! you are dreadfully hurt,” but, 
like the good Samaritan, pours in oil and wine, and pays 
his board at the tavern. 

There must also be a prow, arranged to cut and over¬ 
ride the billow. That is Christian perseverance. There 
are three mountain surges that sometimes dash against a 
soul in a minute—the world, the flesh, and the devil; and 
that is a well-built prow that can bound over them. For 
lack of this, many have put back and never started again. 
It is the broadside wave that so often sweeps the deck 
and fills the hatches; but that which strikes in front is 
harmless. Meet troubles courageously and you sur¬ 
mount them. Stand on the prow, and as you wipe off 
the spray of the split surge, cry out with the apostle, 
“ None of these things move me.” Let all your fears 
stay aft. The right must conquer. Know that Moses, 
in an ark of bulrushes, can run down a war-steamer. 

Have a good, strong anchor. “ Which hope we have 
as an anchor.” By this strong cable and windlass, hold 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


75 

on to your anchor. “ If any man sin, we have an advo¬ 
cate with the Father.” Do not use the anchor wrong¬ 
fully. Do not always stay in the same latitude and lon¬ 
gitude. You will never ride up the harbor of Eternal 
Best if you all the way drag your anchor. 

But you must have sails. Vessels are not fit for the 
sea until they have the flying jib, the foresail, the top¬ 
gallant, the sky-sail, the gaff-sail, and other canvas. Faith 
is our canvas. Hoist it, and the winds of heaven will 
drive you ahead. Sails made out of any other canvas 
than Faith will be slit to tatters by the first northeaster. 
Strong faith never lost a battle. It will crush foes, blast 
rocks, quench lightnings, thresh mountains. It is a shield 
to the warrior, a crank to the most ponderous wheel, a 
lever to pry up pyramids, a drum whose beat gives 
strength to the step of the heavenly soldiery, and sails 
to waft ships laden with priceless pearls from the harbor 
of earth to the harbor of heaven. 

But you are not yet equipped. You must have what 
seamen call the running rigging . This comprises the 
ship’s braces, halliards, clew-lines, and such like. With¬ 
out these the yards could not be braced, the sails lifted, 
nor the canvas in anywise managed. We have jprayer 
for the running rigging. Unless you understand this 
tackling you are not a spiritual seaman. By pulling on 
these ropes, you hoist the sails of faith and turn them 
every whither. The prow of courage will not cut the 
wave, nor the sail of faith spread and flap its wing, un¬ 
less you have strong prayer for a halliard. 

One more arrangement, and you will be ready for the 
sea. You must have a compass—which is the Bible. 
Look at it every day, and always sail by it, as its needle 


76 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


points toward, the Star of Bethlehem. Through fog, and 
darkness, and storm, it works faithfully. Search the 
Scriptures. u Box the compass.” 

Let me give you two or three rules for the voyage. 
Allow your appetites and passions only an under-deck 
passage. Do not allow them ever to come up on the 
promenade deck. Mortify your members which are upon 
the earth. Never allow your lower nature any thing bet¬ 
ter than a steerage passage. Let Watchfulness walk the 
decks as an armed sentinel, and shoot down with great 
promptness any thing like a mutiny of riotous appetites. 

Be sure to look out of the forecastle for icebergs. 
These are cold Christians floating about in the Church. 
The frigid-zone professors will sink you. Steer clear of 
icebergs. 

Keep a log-book during all the voyage—an account of 
how many furlongs you make a day. The merchant 
keeps a day-book as well as a ledger. You ought to 
know every night, as well as every year, how things are 
going. When the express train stops at the depot, you 
hear a hammer sounding on all the wheels, thus testing 
the safety of the rail-train. Bound, as w T e are, with more 
than express speed toward a great eternity, ought we not 
often to try the work of self-examination ? 

Be sure to heep your colors up ! You know the ships 
of England, Russia, France, and Spain by the ensigns 
they carry. Sometimes it is a lion, sometimes an eagle, 
sometimes a star, sometimes a crown. Let it ever be 
known who you are, and for what port you are bound. 
Let “ Christian” be written on the very front, with a fig¬ 
ure of a cross, a crown, and a dove; and from the mast¬ 
head let float the streamers of Emmanuel. Then the 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


h t1 


pirate vessels of temptation will pass you unharmed as 
they say, “ There goes a Christian, bound for the port of 
heaven. We will not disturb her, for she has too many 
guns aboard.” Run up your flag on this pulley: “ I am 
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power 
of God and the wusdom of God unto salvation.” When 
driven back, or laboring under great stress of weather— 
now changing from starboard tack to larboard, and then 
from larboard to starboard—look above the topgallants, 
and your heart shall beat like a war-drum as the stream¬ 
ers float on the wind. The sign of the cross will make 
you patient, and the crown will make you glad. 

Before you gain port you will smell the land breezes 
of heaven; and Christ, the Pilot, will meet you as you 
come into the Narrows of Death, and fasten to you, and 
say, “ When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not over¬ 
flow thee.” 

Are you ready for such a voyage? I have come to 
see you off. This glorious opportunity is about to set 
sail. Make up your minds. The gang-planks are lift¬ 
ing. The bell rings. All aboard for Heaven ! This 
world is not your rest. The chaffinch is the silliest bird 
in all the earth for trying to make its nest on the rock¬ 
ing billow. 

But I suppose you have come here to give me a part¬ 
ing salutation, and I have some things to say in that di¬ 
rection. My heart is bound up in the welfare of this 
church. While the ocean may separate us in body, there 
are feelings of sympathy and affection that will not be 
sundered. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right 
hand forget her cunning.” A little more than a year 


78 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


ago I came here, not knowing what would befall me. 
By a long series of Church troubles that I have no heart 
to describe, this Church had gone into the dust. The 
people had fled. Some had gone to other churches; 
some fell back to the world; some had ascended to heav¬ 
en, glad to get into a place where there were no Church 
fights. They fought, and bled, and died. 

Church-fights are the worst of all fights. When good 
men battle, it is a Waterloo, with no Blucher coming up 
at nightfall to decide the contest. There is no conten¬ 
tion like ecclesiastical contention. When the devil does 
get into a good man’s heart, he feels that his stay must 
be short, and he flies around terribly. And so it w T as in 
this church. They met, and resolved, and said sharp 
things, and looked daggers, and turned every thing up¬ 
side down, until the smoke of battle filled all the place. 
Both sides were so thoroughly cut to pieces that none 
were left to tell the tale. I thank God that, if they had 
to fight, they kept on until there was nothing left of ei¬ 
ther side. I came here and found the field clear. The 
handful of people that remained were of peculiar stuff. 
They were fire-proof. Nothing could drive them off; 
nothing could surprise them; and I have to say that a 
better company of people I never lived among. After 
having chosen me as their captain, every man took his 
place in the ranks, ready for marching orders. In solid 
column we have marched up to this hour, shoulder to 
shoulder, step to step. But nineteen twentieths of you 
are new men. You have come here because you liked 
it. You have come from Presbyterian, Baptist, Method¬ 
ist, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Lutheran churches, 
and from no church at all. I mean to keep on stirring 


TIIE VO TA GE TO HE A VEK 


79 


you up, and stirring you up, until I get you so thorough¬ 
ly mixed that you will never again be assorted until the 
archangel’s trump shall sound, and some of you shall go 
to the right, and others to the left. 

Of all kinds of churches, this is the kind I like best. 
If there is any thing in all the world distressful to a 
minister, it is to get into a pulpit where things are ster¬ 
eotyped and fixed, and where he must stand on the look¬ 
out for long-established prejudices, and have committees 
waiting on him to tell him how he must comb his hair 
and fold his pocket-handkerchief. Rather let me be 
doomed to the mines of Siberia than dwell in such a 
place. Shall not the man who proclaims liberty to the 
captives himself be free? Rather give me an empty 
church to start with than a church full of precisianists. 
I have no great fondness for fossils. I see more to ad¬ 
mire in one living horse than in fifty megatheria or mas¬ 
todons exhumed by geologists. Give me one man with 
a great heart rather than a thousand men made out of 
plaster of Paris. 

I will not go away until I have thanked you for the 
kindness with which you have surrounded me. I refer 
not more to that which has been evidenced by overt ac¬ 
tions than to that sympathy which one may feel but can 
not describe. I know that I dwell among friends; and 
though there are those in the world who do not under¬ 
stand me, I know that you do, and that in those tender 
hours w T hen you go before God for a blessing you do not 
forget me. You are written in my heart, and the storm, 
and the darkness, and the sea shall hear my prayer for 

Some of you I leave in trouble. Things are going 


80 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


very rough with you. You have had a hard struggle 
with poverty, sickness, or bereavement. Light after light 
has gone out, and it is so dark that you can hardly see 
any blessing left. May that Jesus who comforted the 
widow of. min, and raised the damsel to life, with his 
gentle hand of sympathy and compassion w T ipe away 
your tears. I can not leave you until once more I con¬ 
fess my faith in the Savior whom I have preached 
since I came here. He is my all in all. I owe more to 
the grace of God than most men. With this ardent 
temperament, if I had gone overboard I would have 
gone to the very depths. You know I can do nothing 
by halves. 

“ O to grace how great a debtor 
Daily I’m constrained to be!” 

I think all will be well. Ho not be worried about 
me. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and if any fatal¬ 
ity should befall me, I think I should go straight. I 
have been most unworthy, and would be sorry to think 
that any one in this house had been as inefficient a Chris¬ 
tian as myself. But God has helped a great many 
through, and I hope he will help me through. It is a 
long account of shortcomings, but if he is going to rub 
any of it out, I think he will rub it all out. 

And now give us (for I go not alone) your benedic¬ 
tion. When you send letters to a friend in a distant 
land, you say via such a city, or via such a steamer. 
When you send your good wishes to us, send them via 
the throne of God. We shall not travel out of the reach 
of your prayers. We go to Scotland, the land of John 
Knox and Hugh M‘Kail, and to see Bannockburn, and 
the place where men bought their freedom to worship 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN,\ 


81 

God, and paid for it by counting out in ricli drops of 
blood the price of their souls’ emancipation. We go to 
England to hear the whirr of her factories, and study 
her castles, and admire her philanthropies, and acknowl¬ 
edge the supremacy of that throne on which a Christian 
wpman sits, an example of virtue for all the world. We 
expect to look at the land of William Tell, and to see 
God throned on the Alps. 13ut by day and by night, on 
the land and on the sea, our hearts shall run back to 
these pleasant associations. 

“There is a scene where spirits dwell, 

Where friend holds intercourse with friend: 

Though sundered far, by faith we meet 
Around one common mercy-seat. ” 

Meanwhile, take care of the interests of this Church. 
In your last hours there will be no work that will yield 
you such high satisfaction as that which you do for God. 
Let there not be more strokes of the hammer or clicks 
of the trowel on that Tabernacle than supplications to 
God. A field opens for us such as is seldom granted to 
a Church. By a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost may 
we be ready to enter it. And now, may the blessing of 
God come down upon your bodies and upon your souls, 
your fathers and mothers, your companions, your chil¬ 
dren, your brothers *and sisters, and your friends! May 
you be blessed in your business and in your pleasures, in 
your joys and in your sorrows, in the house and by the 
way! And if, during our separation, an arrow from 
the unseen world should strike any of us, may it only 
hasten on the raptures that God has prepared for those 
who love him! I utter not the word'farewell; it is too 
sad, too formal a word for me td speak. But, consid- 
D 2 


•82 


THE VOYAGE TO HEAVEN. 


ering that I have your hand tightly clasped in both of 
mine, I utter a kind, an affectionate, and a cheerful 
Good-by ! 

“ And when we had taken our leave one of another, 
we took ship.” 


THE BALANCES. 


83 


THE BALANCES. 

“Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting.”— Dan. v. A 27 . 

B ABYLON was the paradise of architecture. Driven 
out from thence, the most elaborate structures of 
modern times are only the evidence of her fall. After 
the site of Babylon had been selected, two million of 
men were employed for the construction of the wall and 
principal works. The walls of the city were sixty miles 
in circumference. They were surrounded by a trench, 
out of which had been dug the material for the construc¬ 
tion of the city. There were twenty-five gates of solid 
brass on each side of the square city. Between every 
two gates’ a great watch-tower sprang up into the heav¬ 
ens. From each of the twenty-five gates, on either side, 
a street ran straight through to the gate on the other 
side, so that there were fifty streets, each fifteen miles 
long, wdiich gave to the city an appearance of wonderful 
regularity. The houses did not join each other on the 
ground, arid between them were gardens and shrubbery. 
From house-top to Tiouse-top bridges swung, over which 
the inhabitants were accustomed to pass. A branch of 
the Euphrates went through the city, over which a bridge 
of marvelous structure was thrown, and under which a 
tunnel ran. To keep the river from overflowing the city 
in times of freshet, a great lake was arranged to catch 
the surplus, in which the water was kept as in a reser¬ 
voir until times of drought, when it was sent streaming 


84 


THE BALANCES. 


down over the thirsty land. A palace stood at each end 
of the Euphrates bridge; one palace a mile and three 
quarters in compass, and the other palace seven and a 
half miles in circumference. The wife of Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar, having been brought up among the mountains of 
Media, could not stand it in this flat country of Babylon, 
and 'so, to please her, Nebuchadnezzar had a mountain, 
four hundred feet high, built in the midst of the city. 
This mountain was surrounded by terraces, for the sup¬ 
port of which great arches were lifted. On the top of 
these arches flat stones were laid; then a layer of reeds 
and bitumen; then two rows of bricks, closely cement¬ 
ed ; then thick sheets of lead, upon which the soil was 
placed. The earth here deposited was so deep that the 
largest trees had room to anchor their roots. All the 
glory of the flowery tropics was spread out at that tre¬ 
mendous height, until it must have seemed to one below 
as though the clouds were all in blossom, and the very 
sky leaned on the shoulder of the cedar. At the top an 
engine was constructed, which drew the water from the 
Euphrates, far below, and made it spout up amid this 
garden of the skies. All this to please his wife. I think 
she must have been pleased. 

In the midst of this city stood also the temple of Be- 
lus. One of its towers was one eighth of a mile high, 
and on the top of it an observatory, which gave the as¬ 
tronomers great advantage, as, being at so great a height, 
one could easily talk with the stars. This temple was 
full of cups, and statues, and censers, all of gold. One 
image weighed a thousand Babylonish talents, which 
would be equal to fifty-two million dollars. But why 
enlarge ? This city is besieged and doomed. Though 


THE BALANCES. 


85 


provisioned for twenty years, it shall fall to-night. See 
the gold and silver plate flash on the king’s table. Poui- 
out the rich wine from the tankards into the cups. 
Drink, my lords, to the health of the king. Drink to 
the glory of Babylon. Drink to the defenders of the 
city. Drink to a glorious future. Startle not at the 
splashed wine on the table as though it were blood. 
Turn not pale at the clash of the cups, as though it were 
the clang of arms. On with the mirth! A thousand 
lords reel on their chairs, and quarrel and curse. The 
besotted king sags back on his chair, and stares vacantly 
on the wall. But that vacant look takes on intensity. 
It is an affrighted look. As he gazes, the lords gaze. 
Every eye is turned to the wall. Darkness falls upon 
the room. The blaze of the gold plate goes out. Out 
of the black sleeve of the darkness a finger of fiery ter¬ 
ror trembles through the air and comes to the wall, cir¬ 
cling about as though it would write, and then, with 
sharp tip of flame, engraves on the plastering the doom of 
the king,“Weighed in the balance, and found wanting!” 

The bang of heavy fists against the palace gates is fol¬ 
lowed by the crashing in of the doors. A thousand 
gleaming daggers strike through a thousand quivering 
hearts. And now Death is the king, and his throne a 
heap of corpses. An unseen balance had been set up in 
the festal hall. God swung it. Nebuchadnezzar’s op¬ 
portunities on one side of the balance, and his sins on the 
other. Down went his sins; up went his opportunities. 
Weighed, and found wanting. 

There has been a great deal of cheating in this coun¬ 
try by false weights and measures. Government ap¬ 
pointed commissioners to stamp the weights and meas- 


86 


THE BALANCES. 


ures. Much of the wrong has been righted. I speak of 
another kind of scales. We all have been in the habit 
of making mistakes in our weighing of men and things. 
There is, indeed, only one pair of balances absolutely per¬ 
fect, and that is suspended from the throne of God Al¬ 
mighty. Other balances get out of order. The chain 
breaks, or the metal is clipped, or the equipoise in some 
other way is broken; and a pound does not always mean 
a pound; and you pay for one thing and get another. 
But the balances of God never lose their adjustment. 
With them, a pound is a pound, and right is right, and 
wrong is wrong, and a soul is a soul, and eternity is eter¬ 
nity. God has a bushel measure, a peck measure, and a 
gallon measure. Whenever a merchant measures a 
bushel of wheat, or salt, or corn, God weighs it imme¬ 
diately after him. The merchant’s measure may be 
wrong, but God’s measure is just right. If a merchant 
measures a gallon of oil and does not give the proper 
quantity, God measures it and says , u So many drops too 
few! Recording angel, write it down.” If a farmer 
comes to town with apples for sale and he does not give 
full measure, the apples are immediately put into God’s 
peck, and record is made of twenty apples too few. 
We may cheat ourselves and we may cheat our neigh¬ 
bors; but in the last day we shall find that what we 
learned at school, in our boyhood, is true; and that 
twelve ounces make a pound, and twenty hundred weight 
make one ton, and one hundred and twenty-eight solid 
feet make one cord of wood. Ro more, no less. 

But I am not now to speak of the weighing of coffees 
and sugars, but of the weighing of principles, of indi¬ 
viduals, of churches, and of worlds. Many suppose that 


THE BALANCES. 


87 

sin is imponderable; but it is heavy enough to crush a 
world. Yea, our earth itself is to be put on the scales, 
with all its mountains, and valleys, and seas. You would 
think that the Alps, and Pyrenees, and Himalayas, and 
Mount Washingtons, and all the cities of the earth, on 
one side of the scale, would crush it. No! God will at 
last see what opportunities the world had, and what op¬ 
portunities it neglected; and he will sit down on the 
white throne to see the old world weighed, and will see 
it rise in the balance lighter than a feather; and he will 
cry out to his messengers who carry the torch, u Burn 
that world. Weighed, and found wanting.” 

God is every day estimating churches. He puts a 
great church into the scales. He puts the minister, and 
the choir, and the grand structure, that cost hundreds of 
thousands of dollars, on the same side. On the other 
side of the scales he puts the idea of spiritual life that 
the Church ought to possess, or brotherly love, or faith, 
or sympathy for the poor. Up goes the grand meeting¬ 
house, with its minister and choir. God says that a 
Church is of much worth only as it saves souls; and if, 
with all your magnificent machinery, you save but a 
handful of men when you might save a multitude, he 
will spew you out of his mouth. Weighed, and found 
wanting! 

God is also estimating .nations. He put the Spanish 
monarchy in the scales a few months ago, and found it 
insufficient, and cast it aside. He put the French mon¬ 
arch, with his empire, in the scales. Napoleon cried out, 
“ See what I have done to enlarge the Boulevards ! I 
kindled up the glories of the Champs Elysees! I en¬ 
larged the Tuileries! I built the gilded Opera House!” 


83 


THE BALANCES 


Then God put on one side of the scales the Emperor, 
and the Boulevards, and the Champs Elysdes, and the 
Tuileries, and the gilded Opera House, but on the other 
side of the scales he put that man’s abominations and 
the outrages lie had committed against the French na¬ 
tion. Down went the sins; up went the emperor, with 
all his surroundings. “Weighed in the balance, and 
found wanting!” 

But I w r ant to become more personal. I have heard 
persons say that ministers ought to deal with things in 
the abstract, and not be personal. What success would 
a hunter have if he w T ent out to shoot deer in the ab¬ 
stract ? He puts the butt of the gun to his breast; lays 
his eye along the barrel; takes sure aim ; draws the trig¬ 
ger, and crash go the antlers on the rocks! What if a 
physician, called into your house, should treat your ail¬ 
ments in the abstract ? How long before the inflamma¬ 
tion would heal, or the pain be assuaged ? What folly to 
talk about sin in the abstract, wdien you and I have in our 
souls a malady that must be cured, or it wflll kill us, mis¬ 
erably and forever! 

God lifts the balances to-night. The judgment day is 
coming. Every day is a day of judgment. We are this 
moment being canvassed, inspected, weighed. But do 
not let us all get on the scales at once. Wd will take 
one at a time. Who will get on first ? Here is a volun¬ 
teer. He is a moralist — as upright a man as there is 
in Brooklyn. Get in, brother. What is it that you have 
with you in that bundle ? He says , u It is my reputation 
for morality, and uprightness, and integrity.” Leave that 
behind. It is not fair- that you carry a bundle with you. 
We just want to measure you. Have you slandered your 


THE BALANCES. 


89 


neighbors? You say, “Never have 1 slandered them.” 
What outrages have you committed against society? 
You say, “ None.” So far, so good. Have your thoughts 
always been right? You answer,“No.” I put down 
one mark against you. Have you served God as you 
ought ? “ No.” Another mark against you. Have you 

loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all your soul? “No.” 
Another mark against you. Come, now T , be frank. Have 
you not, in ten thousand things, come short of your duty ? 
“ Yes.” Then I put down ten thousand marks against 
you. Bring me a larger book, in which I may make rec¬ 
ord of your deficits and neglects. Do not jump out of 
the scales until I have examined them. You stand on 
one side, with all your kindnesses, and charities, and con¬ 
ciliations of behavior. On the other side I put this one 
weight, “ By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be 
justified.” Down goes the weight; up go your good 
works. “ Weighed in the balance, and found wanting 1” 
Who will come next ? Here comes a formalist, who 
gets on the scales—a man whose religion is made up of 
genuflections, postures, and outward proprieties. Broth¬ 
er, what is that you have in your pocket? He says it 
is a Westminster Assembly Catechism . What is it you 
have in that other pocket ? He says that it is the Hei¬ 
delberg Catechism . What is that you have under your 
arm ? He says it is a church record. What are those 
books that I see scattered around on your side of the 
scales ? He says they are Calvin's Institutes. My broth¬ 
er, we did not come here to weigh books, however good 
they may be. We want on this scale nothing but your 
soul. Your orthodoxy won’t save you. Men have gone 
to hell with a Catechism in each pocket. The forms of 


90 


THE BALANCES. 


religion are only the scaffolding for putting up the spir¬ 
itual house. Alas! if you have mistaken the scaffolding 
for the temple itself. “But I cross myself ever so 
many times,” you say. That will not’save you. “But 
I give liberally to the poor.” That will not save you. 
“But I read a chapter every night before I go to bed.” 
That will not save you. “ But I sit at the communion¬ 
table.” That will not save you. “ But my name is 
down on the Church book.” That will not save you. 
“But I have been a professor of religion for thirty 
years.” That will not save you. I place on your side 
of the balance all the edicts, all the religious counsels, 
all the communion-tables that were ever built, and on 
the opposite side of the balance I put this hundred- 
pound weight: “Having the fokm of godliness , hut 
denying the joower thereof From such turn away.” 
“Weighed in the balance, and found wanting!” 

Here comes a worldling. You can not mistake him. 
Ilis eyes, his hands, his heart are full of business. Stocks, 
dividends,, percentages, scrip, “ buyer, ten days,” “ buyer, 
thirty days.” His heaven is a successful bargain; his 
eternity so many feet front by so many feet deep. He 
wants to go to heaven, because where there is so much 
gold it must be that “ money is easy.” The most tre¬ 
mendous question he ever asks himself is, “ How low can 
I buy these goods, and how high a price can I get for 
them ?” The day is full of rush and din, and he sleeps 
and sweats under a nightmare of dollars. The Sabbath 
is a vulgar interruption, and he hopes, on his way to 
church, to drum up a new customer. Day by day he has 
been weighing confections, weighing fruits, weighing 
meat, weighing ice, or weighing coal, not knowing that 


THE BALANCES. 


91 


he all the time was being weighed. I pile np beside 
him, on his side of the scales, the hogsheads, and the 
barrels, and the money-vaults, and the store-houses, and 
the cargoes, but all these give to the worldling no addi¬ 
tional weight. At the very moment we were congratu¬ 
lating him on the fine store, and the full-blooded stock, 
and the princely income, God and the angels were look¬ 
ing upon the scene and announcing the solemn truth, 

“ Weighed in the balance, and found wanting.” 

But I must go on faster and look at the last great 
scrutiny. We are passing on, heedless of the most as¬ 
tounding considerations. In a moment the ground may 
break through and let you fall into the grave. The 
pulses of life, now so regularly drumming in the march, 
any moment may cry Halt! On a hair-hung bridge we 
walk over bottomless chasms. When we go to bed at 
night we know not that we shall see the day dawn. 
When we go forth from our homes we know not that we 
shall return again. Dangers lurk about your path, and 
are ready to break upon you from ambush. In a mo¬ 
ment the door of eternity may swing open, and invisible 
ushers conduct you in for reward or for retribution. A 
crown of glory is being burnished for your brow, or 
bolts are being forged for your prison. Angels of light 
are making ready to shout over your deliverance, or 
fiends of darkness reaching up their skeleton hands to 
pull you down into ruin consummate. Suddenly the * 
Judgment will be here. The angel, with one foot on 
the sea and the other on the land, will swear by Him 
that liveth forever that Time shall be no longer! 

Hark! I hear the jarring of the mountains. It is the 
setting down of the balances. Look! there is something 


92 


THE BALANCES. 


like a flash from the cloud. It is the glitter of the shin¬ 
ing balances. All the unforgiven souls of earth must 
get into the scales. They may struggle to keep out, but 
God will put them in. Let the universe look on and see 
the last great weighing. The world may have weighed 
them and pronounced them moral. They may have 
weighed themselves, and given a self-gratulatory deci¬ 
sion ; but now God weighs them in unmistakable bal¬ 
ances. On this side of the scales are placed the souls of 
the unpardoned—their wealth all gone, their crowns all 
gone, their titles all gone. Nothing remains but the 
naked souls of the unforgiven. On the other side of the 
scales are placed w T asted Sabbaths, misimproved privi¬ 
leges, disregarded sermons, innumerable opportunities of 
pardon. Ilark! how the scales come down oil this last 
side, loud as thunder! God, looking at the balance, shall 
announce, in the presence of men and devils, and cher¬ 
ubim and archangel, while groaning earthquake, and 
crackling conflagration, and judgment trumpet, and 
everlasting storm shall repeat it, “Weighed in the bal¬ 
ance, and found wanting!” 

“ But,” you ask, “ how, if we repent to-night and come 
to God, will we at last be weighed ?” Yes! yes! There 
is no escape from the scrutiny. The wicked have been 
tested and driven away in their wickedness. Now let 
the righteous get on to the balances. “ Oh!” you say, 
“let me off; I can not stand the test.” Get in, ye 
righteous! “What, with all my sin?” No time to dis¬ 
cuss that matter. The bell of judgment is tolling. The 
balances are adjusted—get in you must. All your op¬ 
portunities of being better and doing more good are 
placed on one side of the scales, and you get in on the 


THE BALANCES. 


93 


other. L on are too light to budge the balances in your 
favor. On your side are spread all the kind words you 
ever spoke, and all the Christian deeds you ever did. 
Too light yet! On your side are put all your prayers, 
all your repentance, all your faith. Too light yet! 
Come and get on this side—Paul, Luther, Baxter, Pay- 
son, and Doddridge—and help the Christian bear down 
the scale. Too light yet! Get on this side, all ye mar¬ 
tyrs who went through fire and flood—Wickliffe, Ridley, 
and Latimer. Too light yet! Come, angels of God, 
and get on the scales, and see if ye can not turn the 
balances in favor of the saints; for the judgment is 
ending, and let not the righteous be banished with the 
wicked. Too light yet! Place on this side all the scep¬ 
tres of light, and all the palm-branches of triumph, and 
all the thrones of glory. Too light yet! But at this 
point Jesus, the Son of God, steps up to the balances. 
He puts one scarred foot on the Christian’s side of the 
scales, and they tremble and quiver from top to bottom. 
He puts both feet on, and down go the scales on the 
Christian’s side with a stroke that sets all the hells of 
heaven a-chiming! This Rock of Ages is heavier than 
any other weight. 

But, oh Christian! you may not get off so easily. I 
place on the opposite scale all the sins that you ever 
committed, and all the envies, and hates, and inconsist¬ 
encies of a lifetime, hut altogether they do not budge 
the scales. Christ, Qn your side, has settled the balances 
forever. There is no condemnation to them that are in 
Christ Jesus. Go free! go free! Sins all pardoned, 
shackles all broken, prison-doors all opened. Go free! 
go free ! Weighed in the balance, and nothing wanting! 


94 CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 


CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME 


TO IT. 


“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof .”—Matthew vi., 31. 

HE life of every man, woman, and child is as close- 



JL 1 j under the divine care as though such person 
were the only man, woman, or child. There are no ac¬ 
cidents. As there is a law of storms in the natural 
world, so there is a law of trouble, a law of disaster, a 
law of misfortune; but the majority of the troubles of 
life are imaginary, and the most of those anticipated 
never come. At any rate, there is no cause of complaint 
against God. See how much he hath done to make thee 
happy : his sunshine filling the earth with glory, making 
rainbow for the storm and halo for the mountain, green¬ 
ness for the moss, saffron for the cloud, and crystal for 
the billow, and procession of bannered flame through the 
opening gates of the morning, chaffinches to sing, rivers 
to glitter, seas to chant, and springs to blossom, and over¬ 
powering all other sounds with-its song, and overarching 
all other splendor with its triumph, covering up all other 
beauty with its garlands, and outflashing all other thrones 
w T ith its dominion—deliverance for a lost world through 
the Great Redeemer. 

I discourse this morning of the sin of borrowing 
trouble . 

First: Such a habit of mind and heart is wrong, be¬ 
cause it puts one into a despondency that ill fits him for 
duty. 


CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 95 

I planted two rose-bushes in my garden; the one 
thrived beautifully, the other perished. I found the dead 
one on the shady side of the house. Our dispositions, 
like our plants, need sunshine. Expectancy of repulse 
is the cause of many secular and religious failures. Fear 
of bankruptcy has uptorn many a fine business, and sent 
the man dodging among the note-shavers. Fear of slan¬ 
der and abuse has often invited all the long-beaked vul¬ 
tures of scorn and backbiting. Many of the misfortunes 
of life, like hyenas, flee if you courageously meet them. 

How poorly prepared for religious duty is a man who 
sits down under the gloom of expected misfortune ! If 
he pray, he says, “ I do not think I shall be answered.” 
If he give, he says, “ I expect they will steal the money.” 
Helen Chalmers told me that her father, Thomas Chal¬ 
mers, in the darkest hour of the history of the Free 
Church of. Scotland, and when the woes of the land 
seemed to weigh upon his heart, said to his children, 
“ Come, let us go out and play ball or fly kite,” and the 
only difficulty in the play was that the children could 
not keep up with their father. The M‘Cheynes and the 
Summerfields of the Church who did the most good cul¬ 
tivated sunlight. Away with the horrors! they distill 
poison; they dig graves; and if they could climb so 
high, they would drown the rejoicings of heaven with 
sobs and wailing. 

You will have nothing but misfortune in the future 
if you sedulously watch for it. How shall a man catch 
the right kind of fish if he arranges his line, and hook, 
and bait to catch lizards and water - serpents ? Hunt 
for bats and hawks, and bats and hawks you will find. 
Hunt for robin-redbreasts, and you will find robin-red- 


96 CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 

breasts. One night an eagle and an owl got into fierce 
battle; the eagle, unused to the night, w T as no match for 
an owl, which is most at home in the darkness, and the 
king of the air fell helpless; but the morning rose, and 
with it rose the eagle; and the owls, and the night-hawks, 
and the bats came a second time to the combat; now 
the eagle, in the sunlight, with a stroke of his talons and 
a great cry, cleared the air, and his enemies, with torn 
feathers and splashed with blood, tumbled into the thick¬ 
ets. Ye are the children of light. In the night of de¬ 
spondency you will have no chance against your ene¬ 
mies that flock up from beneath, but, trusting in God 
and standing in the sunshine of the promises, you shall 
“ renew your youth like the eagle. 5 ’ 

Again: The habit of borrowing trouble is wrong, be¬ 
cause it has a tendency to make us overlook present 
blessing. 

To slake man’s thirst, the rock is cleft, and cool waters 
leap into his brimming cup. To feed his hunger, the 
fields bow down with bending wheat, and the cattle 
come down with full udders from the clover pastures to 
give him milk, and the orchards yellow and ripen, cast¬ 
ing their juicy fruits into his lap. Alas! that amid such 
exuberance of blessing, man should growl as though he 
were a soldier on half rations, or a sailor on short allow¬ 
ance; that a man should stand neck-deep in harvests 
looking forward to famine; that one should feel the 
strong pulses of health marching with regular tread 
through all the avenues of life, and yet tremble at the 
expected assault of sickness; that a man should sit in his 
pleasant home, fearful that ruthless want will some day 
rattle the broken window-sash with tempest, and sweep 


CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 97 

the coals from the hearth, and pour hunger into the bread- 
tray ; that a man fed by Him who owns all the harvests 
should expect to starve; that one whom God loves and 
surrounds with benediction, and attends with angelic es¬ 
cort, and hovers over with more than motherly fondness, 
should be looking for a heritage of tears! Has God been 
hard with thee, that thou shouldst be foreboding ? Has 
he stinted thy board ? Has he covered thee with rags ? 
Has he spread traps for thy feet, and galled thy cup, and 
rasped thy soul, and wrecked thee with storm, and thun¬ 
dered upon thee with a lifeful of calamity ? If your fa¬ 
ther or brother come into your bank where gold and sil¬ 
ver are lying about, you do not watch them, for you know 
they are honest; but if an entire stranger come by the 
safe, you keep your eye on him, for you do not know his 
designs. So some men treat God; not as a father, but 
a stranger, and act suspiciously toward him, as though 
they w T ere afraid he would steal something. It is high 
time you began to thank God for present blessing. Thank 
him for your children, happy, buoyant, and bounding. 
Praise him for your home, with its fountain of song and 
laughter. Adore him for morning light and evening 
shadow. Praise him for fresh, cool water, bubbling from 
the rock, leaping in the cascade, soaring in the mist, fall¬ 
ing in the showier, dashing against the rock, and clapping 
its hands in the tempest. Love him for the grass that 
cushions the earth, and the clouds that curtain the sky, 
and the foliage that waves in the forest. Thank him for 
a Bible to read, and a cross to gaze upon, and a Savior 
to deliver. 

Many Christians think it a bad sign to be jubilant, and 
their work of self-examination is a hewing down of their 
E 


98 CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 

brighter experiences. Like a boy with a new jackknife, 
hacking every thing he comes across, so their self-exam¬ 
ination is a religious cutting to pieces of the greenest 
things they can lay their hands on. They imagine they 
are doing God’s service when they are going about bor¬ 
rowing trouble, and borrowing it at thirty per cent., which 
is always a sure precursor of bankruptcy. 

Again : The habit of borrowing trouble is wrong, be¬ 
cause the present is sufficiently taxed with trial. God 
sees that we all need a certain amount of trouble, and so 
he apportions it for all the days and years of our life. 
Alas for the policy of gathering it all up for one day or 
year! Cruel thing to put upon the back 6f one camel 
all the cargo intended for the entire caravan. I never 
look at my memorandum-book to see what engagements 
and duties are far ahead. Let every week bear its own 
burdens. 

The shadows of to-day are thick enough, why implore 
the presence of other shadows ? The cup is already dis¬ 
tasteful, why halloo to disasters far distant to come, and 
wring out more gall into the bitterness % Are we such 
champions that, having won the belt in former encoun¬ 
ters, we can go forth to challenge all the future ? 

Here are business men just able to manage affairs as 
they now are. They Lan pay their rent, and meet their 
notes, and manage affairs, as gold now is at 112; but how 
if it should shoot up to 120, or fall to 105 ? Go to-mor¬ 
row and write on your day-book, on your ledger, on your 
money-safe, “ Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’* 
Do not worry about notes that are far from due. Do 
not pile up on your counting-desk the financial anxieties 
of the next twenty years. The God who has taken care 


CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 99 

of your worldly occupation, guarding your store from 
the torcli of the incendiary and the key of the burglar, 
will be as faithful in 1871 as in 1861. God’s hand is 
mightier than the machinations of stock-gamblers, or the 
plots of political demagogues, or the red right arm of 
revolution, and the darkness will fly and the storm fall 
dead at his feet. 

So there are persons here in feeble health, and they 
are worried about the future. They make out very well 
now, but they are bothering themselves about future 
pleurisies, and rheumatisms, and neuralgias, and fevers. 
Their eyesight is feeble, and they are worried lest they 
entirely lose it Their liearing*is indistinct, and they are 
alarmed lest they become entirely deaf. They felt chilly 
to-day, and are expecting an attack of typhoid. They 
have been troubled for weeks with some perplexing mal¬ 
ady, and dread becoming life-long invalids. Take care 
of your health now, and trust God for the future. Be 
not guilty of the blasphemy of asking him to take care 
of you while you sleep with your windows tight down, 
or eat chicken-salad at eleven o’clock at night, or sit down 
on a cake of ice to cool off. Be prudent, and then be 
confident. Some of the sickest people have been the 
most useful. It was so with Payson, who died deaths 
daily, and Robert Hall, who used to stop in the midst of 
his sermon, and lay down on the pulpit-sofa to rest, and 
th'en go on again. Theodore Frelinghuysen had a great 
horror of dying till the time came, and then went peace¬ 
fully. Take care of the present, and let the future look 
out for itself. “ Sufficient unto the day is the evil there¬ 
of.” 

Again: The habit of borrowing misfortune is wrong, 
because it unfits us for it when it actually does come. 


100 CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. 

We can not always have smooth sailing. Life’s path will 
sometimes tumble among declivities, and mount a steep, 
and be thorn-pierced. Judas will kiss our cheek, and 
then sell us for thirty pieces of silver. Human scorn will 
try to crucify us between two thieves. We will hear the 
iron gate of the sepulchre creak and grind as it shuts in 
our kindred. But we can not get ready for these things 
by forebodings. They who fight imaginary woes will 
come out of breath into conflict with the armed disasters 
of the future. Their ammunition will have been wasted 
long before they come under the guns of real misfortune. 
Boys, in attempting to jump a wall, sometimes go so far 
back in order to get impetus that when they come up 
they are exhausted; and these long races in order to get 
spring enough to vault trouble bring us up at last to the 
dreadful reality with our strength gone. 

Finally, The habit of borrowing trouble is wrong, be¬ 
cause it is unbelief. God has promised to take care of 
us. The Bible blooms with assurances. Your hunger 
will be fed; your sicknesses will be alleviated; your sor¬ 
rows w r ill be healed. God will sandal your feet, and 
smooth your path, and along by frowning crag and open¬ 
ing grave sound the voices of victory and good cheer. 
The summer clouds that seem thunder-charged really 
carry in their bosom harvests of wheat, and shocks of 
corn, and vineyards purpling for the wine-press. The 
wrathful -wave will kiss the feet of the great Storm- 
walker. Our great Joshua will command, and above 
your soul the sun of prosperity will stand still. Bleak 
and wave-struck Patmos shall have apocalyptic vision, 
and you shall hear the cry of elders, and the sweep of 
wings, and trumpets of salvation, and the voice of Hal¬ 
lelujah unto God forever. 


CROSSING THE BRIDGE BEFORE YOU COME TO IT. jqI 

Your way may wind along dangerous bridle-paths, and 
amid wolf’s howl and the scream of the vulture, but the 
way still winds upward till angels guard it, and trees of 
life overarch it, and thrones line it, and crystalline foun¬ 
tains leap on it, and the pathway ends at gates that are 
pearl, and streets that are gold, and temples that are al¬ 
ways open, and hills that quake with perpetual song, and 
a city mingling forever Sabbath, and jubilee, and tri¬ 
umph, and coronation. 

“Let Pleasure chant her siren song, 

’Tis not the song for me: 

To weeping it will turn ere long, 

For this is Heaven’s decree. 

But there’s a song the ransomed sing, 

To Jesus their exalted King, 

With joyful heart and tongue, 

Oh, that’s the song for me!” 

Courage, my brother! The father does not give to 
his son at school enough money to last him several years, 
but, as the bills for tuition, and board, and clothing, and 
books come in, pays them. So God will not give you 
grace all at once for the future, but will meet all your 
exigencies as they come. Through earnest prayer, trust 
Him. People ascribe the success of the Cunard line of 
steamers to business skill, and know not the fact that 
when that line of steamers first started, Mrs. Cunard, the 
wife of the proprietor, passed the whole of each day 
when a steamer sailed in prayer to God for its safety and 
the success of the line. Put every thing in God’s hand, 
and leave it there. Large interest money to pay will 
soon eat up a farm, a store, an estate, and the interest on 
borrowed troubles will swamp any body. “ Sufficient 
unto the day is the evil thereof.” 


102 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


CHRISTIAN HAND SHAKING.* 

“ Give me thy hand!”—2 Kings x., 15. 

EIIU had been making an exterminating assault upon 



the idolatry of his day, and Jehonadab comes out to 
offer him congratulation. They meet half way; and one 
exclaims to the other, in all the ardor of friendly recog¬ 
nition, “Give me thy hand /” 

The mode of salutation is different in different coun¬ 
tries. In some lands they kneel before the visitor. In 
some, fall on their faces; in others they stand upright 
and give a slight bend to the neck. But when two per¬ 
sons, believing in the same thing, and working for the 
same object, and trusting in the same God, and hoping 
for the same heaven, come face to face, look each other 
in the eye, and cross palms wdth a tight grip, and shake 
hands, that is human equality and Christian brother¬ 
hood. I fall down before no man in obeisance; I gaze 
down upon no man in arrogance; but, looking into the 
face of friend and foe, I am ready to exclaim, in the 
words'of Jehu to Jehonadab, “Give me thy hand!” 

There has been too great a distance between pulpit 
and pew—-a great gulf fixed. The heart of the preacher 
and the heart of the hearer have not struck each other 
in pulsation. We come down out of our studies, where 
we have had a grand time with Archbishop Leighton and 
Jeremy Taylor, and the people come up out of their 

* Preached on return from Europe. 


CHRISTIAN HAND-SHAKING. 


103 


stores, and shops, and homes, and we have known too 
little of each other. The distance has been so great that 
onr arms are not long enough. Nothing would be more 
preposterous than for a preacher to stand at an elevation 
of five or six feet, and behind a barricade four feet 
through, crying, “Give me thy hand /” Daniel Webster 
said that one of the best evidences of the divinity of our 
holy religion was the fact that it had lived, notwithstand¬ 
ing the clumsy architecture of the pulpit. 

Men use common sense in every thing but in religion. 
The counselor at the bar stands before the jury with his 
person unhid; but when the teacher of religion comes 
out to talk to the people on a plain platform, without 
any desk before him, Christians quote the Psalmist, and 
say, “ The Lord hath no pleasure in the legs of a man.” 
When one merchant wishes to talk to another merchant, 
he does not say,“Wait until I can get behind this dry- 
goods box.” But you wrap us in gowns, and lay us out 
in white cravats, and hide us behind boards, as though 
we were a separate race, and a minister were useful just 
in proportion as you cover him up, and as though we be¬ 
longed to a different order of beings, instead of being 
sinners like yourselves, and beggars at the door of mer¬ 
cy. We have used the Gospel as though it were a 
“ swamp-angel gun” that could shoot six miles, instead 
of reaching up into God’s armory and taking the two- 
edged sword, and with it going down among men, strik¬ 
ing down their sins, hip and thigh, with great slaughter. 

Come, now, and let us get near to each other in a 
plain, loving, Christian talk. My brother! my sister! 
my child! “Give me thy hand!” 

I. Let us join hands in Christian welcome. Three 


104 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


months ago we left each other at Sandy Hook. It was 
a bright day when we w T ent out, but sad w T as the parting. 
To-day we meet again. The summer situ, that carried 
off so many of our fellow-citizens, did not smite you. 
The rail-train rushed from the track, but you clamber¬ 
ed out, unhurt, from the wreck. Some of you were sick, 
and nigh unto death, but God gave skill to the doctors, 
and healing power to the medicine. God watched you 
here , and took care of me traveling in other lands. Was 
there ever any one with so kind a heart as our Father? 
What good care he does take of us! What pleasant 
sleep by night! What wholesome food by day! What 
decent apparel we have on! I think you have never 
heard your children cry for bread when there was no 
flour in the house. Aged man! who has watched you 
these seventy years, so that you can now look back and 
say, “ I have been young, and now am I old, yet have I 
never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging 
bread ?” . Mary, my little child, who made, preserves, 
and redeemed you ? Young man! who can you depend 
upon when all else fails ? You need not answer me, for 
I know that there are thanksgivings now going up from 
all parts of this house. Gathering up the memories of 
what God has done for me , I come out to meet you; and 
you, gathering up the memories of what God has done 
for yon, come out to meet me; and in warm, hearty, 
Christian welcome, we cry, each to each, “ Give me thy 
hand /” Bless the Lord, O my soul! May my every 
thought be gratitude, and my every word thanksgiving! 
Living, I will praise him! Hying, I will charge my chil¬ 
dren, with the laying on of my faltering hands, never to 
forget the Lord, and to cover the plain slab that marks 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


105 


my grave with, “ Oh! give thanks unto the Lord, for he 
is good : for his mercy endureth forever.” 

II. Again: Let us cross hands in congratulation. We 
all felt that we must have a new church. We threw 
out the Gospel net on the right side of the ship, and we 
found it too small to hold the fish. We wanted an arch¬ 
itect who, untratnmeled by frigid ecclesiastical notions, 
could give us a building which would gather the people 
in a circle about the pulpit, as friends and neighbors 
gathering around a fireplace. The work is done. It 
suits us well. And you know that if a man’s wife is 
comely in his eyes, it matters not much if all others 
think her uncomely. Some have called the building 
“Talmage’s Theatre,” and by like gracious nomencla¬ 
ture. But I look upon it merely as a great net to catch 
souls. We have no chandelier that cost a thousand dol¬ 
lars ; we have no windows that it took a year to paint 
with a gorgon, or cherub like fat-boy in scanty clothes; 
we have no upholstery that makes the rainbows ashamed 
of themselve*s; we have spent no two hundred thousand 
dollars in gewgaws. I wanted a place where, for the re¬ 
maining years of my life, I could stand before my fel¬ 
low-men, and, without any hinderance, without any con¬ 
ventionalities, tell them the best story that was ever told 
—how that my Lord Jesus has such a great, wide heart, 
he w^ants all the world to come and lodge in it. I have 
found a great many kind friends, but Jesus is the best. 
He understands me so well, and has such a way of put¬ 
ting up with my frailties, and has promised to do so 
much for me when all other loved ones swim away from 
my vision, and I can no more laugh with them over 
their joys or cry with them over their sorrows. And 
E 2 


106 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


now that the building is done, and untrammeled by the 
pew-rental system which has cursed the Church of God 
for the last fifty years, we can invite all men, whatever 
the flushness or the emptiness of their pockets, to come 
in. I feel that I would like to go round in this room, and, 
in congratulation for what God hath wrought, cry out, 
to young and old, to rich and poor, “Give me thy hand!” 

A few days ago, on a mule’s back, we went climbing 
up to see the Mer de Glace, a frozen Niagara in Switzer¬ 
land. The river has been caught on its way down 
through the mountain gorge and turned into solid ice. 

God stood in the gap one day, and cried “Back! back!” 
to the waters, and they halted. It seemed as though 
they had looked up to the awful steep, and crouched 
back white with terror. Nothing but Omnipotence could 
have taken them by their crystal bit and hurled them 
back on their haunches. Magnificent are they, but mer¬ 
ciless ! A Russian slipped between its glaciers. He 
held on with the tips of his fingers, and cried for help; 
he held on until his fingers were frozen, but the ice made 
no answer, and he perished. What did the ice care? 
Oh! the conventionalities of the Church are imposing 
and beautiful, but it is the magnificence of ice. The 
world, in its want and agony, hangs on to them and cries 
out for help, but no rescue comes, and they drop off and 
die while this ceremonial frigidity stands between the 
mountain of the law and the mountain of the cross —an 
ecclesiastical Mer de Glace. 

III. Again: Let us join hands of Christian sympathy. 
There are some hand-shakings that you never forget. 
You were in trouble. A friend came into the house; he 
said not a word, but there was something in the press- 


CHRISTIAN HAND SHAKING. 


107 


lire of liis hand that brought life, and invigoration, and 
strength to your soul. What did he do? Nothing. He 
only shook hands. In trial we need sympathy. If six 
men put their shoulders under one burden, each man 
only has one sixth part of the burden to bear. If a 
group of friends come around us in times of trial, the 
weight of the affliction is divided among iis all. Now 
there are men and women here to-night who have had 
trouble enough to kill them. While I speak there is a 
man yonder who has a sharp pain cutting down through 
his body until he can hardly keep from crying outright. 
There is a woman who has a home trouble preying on 
her soul. You wonder that, though on her wedding-day, 
five years ago, she was so fair, now there are so many 
wrinkles on her face and such black lines under her 
eyes. She will not tell it; she would rather die than 
tell it. There is a young man who was kicked out of a 
store because he w T ould not lie for his employer. Here 
once was a perfect home circle—father, mother, chil¬ 
dren, and grandparents. How many of them are left ? 
Not one; their heart-strings have snapped. If the graves 
of the earth could be placed side by side, you could 
walk on them, stepping from grave-hillock to grave-hil¬ 
lock all around the world. It seems as if, when trouble 
gets at a man, it can not let him alone. Sorrows are 
like sheep—they go in fiocks; like partridges—they go 
in coveys; like deer—in herds; like fish—in shoals. Was 
there ever a man who had only one pain at a time? 
No; there were six. Or one abuse at a time? No; 
there were twenty slanderers. Or one loss ? No; there 
were thirty disasters. 

Standing by the smoke-stack of the Cuba while there 


108 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


was what the sailprs call a “ big lump of a sea,” as the 
waves struck her the ship seemed stunned, as an ox is 
stunned by a butcher’s bludgeon, or on the cliff of a 
wave seemed poised, light as a brown-thresher on the 
branch of a willow, I said to one of the officers, “ What 
do you think ever became of the City of Boston V’ He 
answered, “ I have sailed in the same latitude where that 
vessel w T ent, and I do not think the icebergs struck her; 
but the waves sometimes go in threes; and if three waves 
strike a ship in quick succession, there is but little hope 
for the ship. I think one wave struck her and knocked 
in the bows, and another, that filled the hatches, and the 
next sunji her.” 

So I have noticed that troubles sometimes go in three 
surges—sickness, poverty, and bereavement dashing upon 
the soul; and then there is an awful shipwreck! 

Oh ! when a man has trouble, he needs friends. 
When a man loses property, he needs all those of his ac¬ 
quaintances who have lost property to come in with their 
sympathy. When bereavement comes to a household, it 
is a comfort to have others who have been bereaved come 
in and sympathize. Give me thy hand a minute, and 
let us have a good talk about our troubles. God is not 
going to let you go under. He w T ill explain, after a 
while, so satisfactorily that it will take an eternity to ex¬ 
press your admiration of his wisdom. You often talk 
about God as your. Father. I know something better 
than that: God is a Mother. “As one whom his mother 
comforteth, so will I comfort you.” With some troubles 
you never think of going to your father. His hand is 
too hard; his word too rough. You go to your mother. 
O the tenderness of the divine sympathy! 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


109 


In an Episcopal church in Chamouni I saw in a 
hymn-book these words: 

“My God, my Father, while I stray 
Far from home, in life’s rough way, 

Oh! teach me from my heart to say, 

Thy will be done! 

“ If thou shouldst call me to resign 
What most I prize—it ne’er was mine— 

I only yield thee what was thine: 

Thy will be done! 

“ Eenew my soul from day to day; 

Blend it with thine, and take away 
All that now makes it hard to say 
Thy will be done! 

“ Then, when on earth I breathe no more 
The prayer, oft mixed with tears before, 

I’ll sing upon the happier shore, 

Thy will be done!” 

We shall, after a while, have done chewing these bit¬ 
ter herbs, and w T ill then sit down at the King’s banquet. 

When a panorama is to pass before an audience, the 
artist darkens the room in which they sit, so that the pic¬ 
ture may be more fully seen; so God darkens our place 
on earth, puts out this light, and that light, and the other 
light, that then he may pass before our souls the splen¬ 
dors and glories of the better land. The darkness here 
augments the light there. 

IV. Again: Let us join hands in a bargain . You 
know that when men make a contract they shake hands 
over it. In a pledge for more prayer and work, give me 
thy hand ! We did not build this house for a dormitory 
in which to sleep, but as an armory, where we are to get 
our weapons scoured and sharpened. Some of you Chris¬ 
tians have been wasting your life in an aimless warfare, 


110 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


doing more harm than good, instead of drawing “ bead” 
sight over a barrel that never misses the mark. I had 
rather go into this conflict with a company of one hun¬ 
dred of God’s picked men, than with a whole battalion 
of Christians who are afraid of getting their feet wet, 
and who are chiefly anxious about their rations. 

Away, all of you drones! out of this hive ! One half 
of our churches are stuck in the mud because of three or 
four professors of religion who are dead, and whose car¬ 
casses are laid in the way of all good enterprises. My 
w T ay is every once in a while to preach a sermon so hot 
and heavy that they can not stand it, and then they go 
out to bore somebody else. 

Rouse up, men and women of God! There* never 
w T as such inducement to work. We have enough ma¬ 
chinery under God to do it all. What we want is more 
men and women to direct the machinery. 

Newspaper men, wheel your presses into line! Men 
of science, set your batteries for the defense of the truth! 
Church of God, march on ! march on! 

What meanest thou, O coward! that thou betrayest 
thy Lord? See! see! The hosts of heaven and hell 
mingle in the fight. Up with the siege-guns! Unlim¬ 
ber the field-pieces! The Lord of Hosts is with us; and 
already methinks I hear the shout, “ Hallelujah! for the 
Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” In the words of Sam¬ 
uel Rutherford, “ O for an empty hell and a full heav¬ 
en!” 

Well, my friends, it is pleasant to-night to join hands 
in welcome, and congratulation, and sympathy, and 
pledge; but, oh! the grander hand-shaking when our 
work is all done! 


CHRISTIAN HANDSHAKING. 


Ill 


It was not until eleven o’clock last niglit that this 
building was completed. The workmen went home 
with glad hearts, thinking that the building w T as done, 
and well done. But, oh! the grander joy when the 
structure of our earthly work is all accomplished! It 
is pleasant to shake hands to-day, but how grander the 
greeting when we meet our friends on the other bank! 
It is a long while since we have seen them. They went 
out pale and weak, and the good-by broke our hearts; 
but not so certain the coming of next spring’s flowers, or 
the dawn of to-morrow’s sun, as that our loved ones in 
Christ shall come again. John will be there; Paul will 
be there; Payson will be there; fathers and mothers, 
brothers and sisters will be there. And hear it, all ye 
harps of heaven, Jesus will be there ! 

What a reunion! What a heavenly handshaking! 
What a congratulation of patriarch with patriarch, and 
apostle with apostle, and martyr with martyr! And as 
we pass up from the darkness of earth into that blissful 
light, the angels of God will bend over to help us over 
•the battlements; and the Church triumphant, with robed 
arm swung out, will cry to Church militant, u Give me 
thy hand!” 


112 


THE RED WORD. 


THE RED WORD. 

“ The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”—1 John 
i.,7. 

E IGHTEEN centuries ago there lived one Jesus. 

Publius Lentulus, in a letter to the Roman senate, 
describes him as “ a man of stature somewhat tall; his 
hair the color of a chestnut fully ripe, plain to the ears, 
whence downward it is more orient, curling and waving 
about the shoulders; in the midst of his forehead is a 
stream, or partition of his hair; forehead plain, and very 
delicate; his face without spot or wrinkle, a lovely red ; 
his nose and mouth so forked as nothing can be rep¬ 
resented; his beard thick, in color like his hair—not 
very long; his eyes gray, quick, and clear.” He must 
die. The French army in Italy found a brass plate on 
which was a copy of his death-warrant, signed by John 
Zorobabel, Raphael Robani, Daniel Robani, and Capet. 

Sometimes men on the w r ay to the scaffold have been 
rescued by the mob. No such attempt was made in this 
case, for the mob w T ere against him. From nine A.M. 
till three P.M. Jesus hung a-dying. It was a scene of 
blood. We are so constituted that nothing is so exciting 
as blood. It is not the child’s cry in the street that so 
arouses you as the crimson dripping from its lip. In the 
dark hall, seeing the finger-marks of blood on the plas¬ 
tering, you cry, “What terrible deed has been done 
here ?” Looking upon this suspended victim of the cross, 


THE RED WORD. 


113 


we tlirill with the sight of blood—blood dripping from 
thorn and nail, blood rushing upon his cheek, blood satu¬ 
rating his garments, blood gathered in a pool beneath. 
There is one red word in the text that rouses up our at¬ 
tention and calls back that scene: “ The blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 

The blood of the cross was royal blood. Through 
our democratic preferences, we may in theory disregard 
royal pretensions; yet when w T e see the son of a king 
our liveliest interest is aroused. Let the Prince of Wales, 
or the Prince Imperial of Prance, even in his broken 
fortunes, go through our streets, and all the city would 
turn out to look. It is called ‘an honor to have in one’s 
veins the blood of the house of Stuart, or of the house 
of Hapsburg. Is it nothing when I point you to-night 
to the outpouring blood of the King of the Universe ? 

In England the name of Henry was so great that its 
honors w T ere divided among different reigns. It was 
Henry the First, and Henry the Second, and Henry the 
Third, and Henry the Fourth, and Henry the Fifth. In 
France^ the name of Louis was so favorably regarded 
that it was Louis the First, Louis the Second, Louis the 
Third, and so on. But this King of whom I speak was 
Christ the First, Christ the Last, and Christ the 
Only. He reigned before the Czar mounted the throne 
of Kussia, or the throne of Austria was lifted, “ King 
Eternal, Immortal.” Through the indulgences of the 
royal family, the physical life degenerates, and some of 
the kings have been almost imbecile, and their bodies 
weak, and their blood thin and watery; but the crimson 
life that flowed upon Calvary had in it the health of the 
immortal God. 


114 


THE RED WORD. 


A king dying! You remember, wlien the last Czar of 
Russia was in his fatal sickness, that bulletins were every 
hour dispatched from the palace, saying, “ The king is 
better,” or “ The king is worse,” or “ The king is delir¬ 
ious,” or “ The king rested easier through the night,” or 
“ The king is dying,” and “ The king is dead.” The bells 
tolled it, the flags signaled it, the telegraphs flashed it. 
Tell it now to all the earth and to all the heavens—Je¬ 
sus, our King, is sick with his last sickness. Let couriers 
carry the swift dispatch. His pains are worse; he is 
breathing a last groan; through his body quivers the last 
anguish; the King is dying; the Kino is dead! Ye 
who come round about the cross, look out how you tread 
in what you see beneath. It is royal blood. It is said 
that the Unitarians make too much of the humanity of 
Christ. I respond that we make too little. If some Ro¬ 
man surgeon, standing under the cross, had caught one 
drop of the blood on his hand and analyzed it, it would 
have been found to have the same plasma, the same disk, 
the same fibrin, the same albumen. It was unmistaka¬ 
bly human blood. It is a man that hangs there. His 
bones are of the same material as ours. His nerves are 
sensitive like ours. If it were an angel being despoiled 
I would not feel it so much, for it belongs to a different 
order of beings. But my Savior is a man , and my whole 
sympathy is aroused. I can imagine how the spikes felt 
—how hot the temples burned—what deathly sickness 
seized his heart—how mountain, and city, and mob swam 
away from his dying vision—something of the meaning 
of that cry for help that makes the blood of all the ages 
curdle with horror: “ My God! my God! why hast thou 
forsaken me ?” 


THE RED WORD. 


115 


I go still farther, and say it was a brother's blood. If 
you saw an entire stranger maltreated, and his life ooz¬ 
ing away on the pavement, you would feel indignant; 
but if, coming along the street, you saw a company of 
villains beating out the life of your own brother, the 
sight of his blood would make you mad. You would 
bound into the affray. At the peril of losing your own 
life, you would rush in, saying, “You vagabonds! this 
is my brother. I dare you to touch him again P You 
would fight until you fell dead beside him. That is your 
brother, maltreated on the cross. They spit on him, and 
slapped him in the face. How do you feel about that ? 
What are your emotions as you hear the falling of the 
blood upon the leaves beneath — drip, drip, drip ? Do 
you not feel as though, with supernatural power, you 
could rush upon the mob ? Do you not feel as if, stand¬ 
ing close, with your back against him, and with one good 
sword in your hand, and a cry to God for help, you could 
hew down the desperadoes that assailed him ? But you 
can not help. The blood rushes from the victim, and 
there he hangs—your dead brother. What is wor&e— 
shall I tell it ?—you slew him ! I charge it, first upon 
myself, and then upon all ye who hear me to-night, the 
awful crime of fratricide. His blood is on our hands. 
Bring me a laver, quick! that I may wash it off. Show 
me the pool where I may be cleansed of the terrible 
stain. Here it is. I have found it. It is the fountain 
opened for all sin; and though sin were as scarlet, it 
shall be as snow. 

Tt was substitutionary blood. Our sins cried to heav¬ 
en for vengeance. Some one must die. Shall it be us 
or Christ ? “ Let it be me,”'said Jesus. You were draft- 


116 


TEE RED WORD. 


ed for the last war, and some one took your place. You 
were in debt; not being able to meet the obligation, some 
one paid it. You can easily understand how Christ went 
in to fight our battles and to pay our debts. The debt 
is canceled; the captives are released; the shackles are 
broken; the prison is opened. Blood paid the price; 
blood washed away the pollution ; blood sealed the agree¬ 
ment. The blood of Paul, that soaked the dust of the 
guillotine; the blood of Hugh Latimer, that simmered 
in the fire; the blood of the high-souled martyrs, that 
reddened the mouths of the lions in the Coliseum, have 
just as much worth to your soul as the blood of Christ, 
unless you take this last as expiatory, and feel the truth 
that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” 

Come, then, and get your sins pardoned. I do not ask 
you to come to a private confessional, or to whisper into 
my ears your offenses, but, sitting where you are, to ac¬ 
cept this moment the blood-cleansing. First, for that old 
sin. Do you ask, “ What sin do you mean ?” I mean 
that old sin that you committed years ago. It may have 
bee'n two years, ten years, or twenty years. You know 
when it was. I think that old sins are like other debts— 
they increase by having the interest added on. They are 
tenfold greater now, and have been multiplied by all of 
your opportunities of having them pardoned. Does that 
old sin present its dun at the door of your soul to-night ? 
Can you not pay it ? Does it threaten to carry you off 
to jail? Does it propose to sell you out? Better get 
together all your bonds and mortgages, and certificates 
of stocks, and United States securities. Come, let me 
count them!—not enough. Bring all the clever things 
you have ever done. Let me count them!—not enough. 


THE RED WORD. 


117 


Bring all that you possess. You say, “ I have brought 
every thing!” Alas! that you can not meet the obliga¬ 
tion. You must die ! “ No! no! no !” says a voice from 
heaven. The blood of Jesus Christ, the royal blood, the 
human blood, the expiatory blood, cleanseth from all sin. 
“ What! is that old sin gone V 9 Yes, I heard it topple 
over and plash into the depths of the sea. It sinks like 
lead. There is no condemnation to them who are in 
Christ Jesus. 

Circumstances aggravate sins. If a child does wrong, 
not wittingly, you excuse it; but w T hen we do wrong, 
we know it. Every time a sin is committed, conscience 
tolls a funeral bell. We may laugh, and pretend not 
to hear it, but hear it we must. Our sins are against 
warnings and reproofs, and doubly aggravated. This 
man’s sins are more heinous than the transgressions of 
that man, because he had a better bringing up. Here 
is a man who, twenty years ago, kneeled at a Methodist 
altar. He went a while on the road to heaven, but then 
got tired, and put off in another direction. Where he 
has been since he began to backslide, he and his God 
only know. This I do know, he is wretchedly unhappy. 
There is no such nest of scorpions this side of hell as the 
heart of the backslider. He is the last man that ever 
returns. The publicans and the harlots come in before 
him. Where, oh man ! is that family altar that you once 
lifted ? Where is the closet of prayer that you once fre¬ 
quented ? Are you as happy now as you used to be ? 
Your common sense teaches you that the man who came 
to Christ, and heard the full expression of God’s love, 
and then went away to betray the Lord, must drink the 
bitterest gall, and the thunders that at last drive him 


118 


THE BED WORD. 


away will roll and crash with all the accumulated wrath 
of God omnipotent; and yet to-night my text sweeps a 
circle of pardon around all these accumulated sins. Fire 
may not be able to burn them out; hoofs may not be 
able to trample them out; hammers may not be able to 
pound them out; but here is blood that will wash them 
out. Come! come! I take you with my right hand, 
while with my left I catch the warm blood that gushes 
from the heart of Christ and pour it over your soul, and, 
lo! the blackness of your sin is gone forever. O that 
the red hand of Christ to-night would rub all our sins 
away! 

But you say, “ These things are not appropriate to me, 
for I am a moral man/’ How about your thoughts? 
You see my right hand, and you see my left hand, and 
one just as plainly as the other. So with the sin of the 
heart and the sin of the life — one is just as plain in 
God’s sight as the other. You have not been guilty of 
murder, you say. Are you sure about that ? Have you 
ever hated any body? Then you are a murderer. (1 
John iii., 15) : “ Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.” 
You say you have never been guilty of theft. Are you 
sure about that ? I acknowledge you have never taken 
any thing from your fellow-man ; but have you not taken 
days and hours that belonged to God for your ow r n pur¬ 
poses? If it is wrong to steal from a man, it is more 
wicked to rob God. 

If I could marshal before you all the sins of the best 
man in this house to-night, this whole audience would 
shriek out with horror. Sins against God and man; sins 
against Sabbaths and sacraments; sins against body and 
soul; sins against light and knowledge; sins against Si- 


THE RED WORD. 


119 


nai and Calvary; sins against the grave and the resur¬ 
rection; sins against the judgment; sins against the 
throne of God and the mansions of glory. I blow the 
trumpet to-night, and call up all the sins of your past life. 
I wave them here from the past. I stamp them up from 
beneath—gather them into companies of hundreds; into 
regiments of thousands; into battalions of ten thousands. 
We have a host vaster than that of Xerxes. Let the 
largest of the hundred sins be captain over the company. 
Let the largest of the thousand iniquities be colonel over 
the regiment. Let the swarthiest transgression of your 
lifetime be general over all the host. Together let them 
wheel, and march, and fire. How the couriers of death 
dash up and down the line! How the great batteries 
of woe belch forth the sulphurous smoke of hell, and 
boom with the cannonading of eternal destruction! The 
host of thy sins innumerable, marching on to capture thy 
soul. One man against a million armed iniquities. Who 
can go forth and meet them? We must fall back and 
fall down. Are there no allies to help ? In all the round 
of God’s universe, is there no one to take our part ? 

Arise, ye seas, and whelm the host! Strike, ye light¬ 
nings, and consume the foe! 

But the wave strikes the beach, and falls back crying 
“ No help in me!” The lightning sheathes itself in the 
black scabbard of the midnight cloud, and says “ No help 
in me !” But yonder I see a white horse in hot haste com¬ 
ing this way. Make room for the courier. He swings 
his sword. Good news! good news! The Captain of 
Salvation comes to the rescue. Fall back, my sins! fall 
back, my sorrows ! Allies of light and love, to arms! 
to arms! The host of our sins scatter in defeat, and our 


120 


TEE BED WORD. 


delivered soul shouts “Victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ.” At the sea-shore you go down on the beach, 
and into the waters, hand in hand, to bathe. None but 
those who have tried it know the exhilaration. I would 
to-night that we might all join hands, and go down by 
scores, and by hundreds, and by thousands, to bathe in 
the great sea of God’s forgiveness. Let us not stand on 
the margin and paddle the ripples with our feet, but 
plunge in until the waves go over our heads, and we 
come up again washed clean from all our sins. Cry 
mightily, that the blood of the Cross may avail for } t ou. 
If it cleanse you not, it will plead against you; and all 
those gaping wounds of Christ, through an unknown 
eternity, will haunt your soul with the thought of what 
you might have been. Oh ! take your feet out of your 
brother’s blood. Go not down, condemned at last, for 
fratricide, and regicide, and Deicide. Better for thee 
that Calvary had never borne its burden, and the lips of 
Christ had never addressed thee in invitation, if, reject¬ 
ing all, thou goest into eternal desolation, thy hands and 
feet bedabbled with the blood of the Son of God. 

Oh ye dying but immortal men! ye blood - bought, 
judgment-bound hearers! repent, and believe, and hear, 
and live! “ How shall we escape if we neglect so great 

salvation 2” 


, THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


121 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


“ And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and it was dark, 
behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those 
pieces .”—Genesis xv., 17. 


HEN the ancients wanted to take an oath they 



▼ » would slay an animal, divide it lengthwise, and 
lay the pieces opposite to each other. Then the parties 
would advance from opposite points, and midway be¬ 
tween the pieces take the oath. God wished to take an 
oath. He ordered a heifer and some birds slain and di¬ 
vided, and the pieces lain opposite to each other; then 
between the pieces passed first a furnace, typical of suf¬ 
fering, and then a lamp, emblem of deliverance. 

So it is in the history of individuals, cities, and na¬ 
tions. First the awful furnace, then the cheerful lamp. 
The furnace of conviction, the lamp of pardon. The 
furnace of trial, the lamp of consolation. The fur¬ 
nace of want, the lamp of prosperity. The furnace of 
death, the lamp of glory. “And it came to pass that 
when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, a 
smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed be¬ 
tween those pieces.” 

It is the duty of the ministry to interpret solemn prov¬ 
idences. Shall a ship founder, carrying down hundreds 
of passengers; or a gunpowder plot be discovered; or a 
revolution break forth; or a pestilence put its leprous 
bandage over the white lips of an empire; or a great 


F 


122 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


city crouch down at the nation’s gate, beggared, while 
the long tongues of the flame lick its sores, and the min¬ 
istry be dumb ? No; God’s writings, by the hand of 
apostle or prophet, are no more divine than are the cap¬ 
itals of alarm and warning written by plume of fire in 
the ruins of the great and beautiful Chicago. 

In that city the Sabbath had closed. The ministers 
of Christ had declared their message of peace and good 
will to men. The doxologies had been sung, and the 
people had gone to their dwellings. Children had fold¬ 
ed their hands in evening prayer, and all over the city 
the “good-night” had been given. God looked down 
upon a great city asleep. But destruction broke forth. 
At the kerosene lamp of a poor woman a torch was 
lighted that made the earth shudder. The two coursers 
of hurricane and conflagration, yoked together, drew on 
the chariot in which white Want, and cursing Despair, 
and shrieking Terror were mounted. Under the red-hot 
hoofs the broken hearts of one hundred and fifty thou¬ 
sand people were flung like a shower of cinders. Store¬ 
houses that had been the pride of the continent surren¬ 
dered their bolts and bars, and iron safes, at the first 
touch of this irresistible burglary. Churches of God, 
that had gone up with a self-denial worthy of an angel’s 
eulogy, dropped their organs, galleries, vestments, and 
consecrated plate into the ashes. And, worse than all, 
the homes took fire, and away went sacred relics, and 
the last pillow on which to sleep, and the last loaf of 
bread, and millionaire and pauper trudged down the 
street, the flaming sword swung at the gate of their par¬ 
adise, forbidding them ever again to enter. Hark to 
that explosion of blocks, that fail to stop the ravages; to 


THE B URNING OF CHIC A GO. 123 

the shrieking of that family, gathered on the house-top, 
begging for help, until the wife falls, and the children 
faint, and the father staggers, and all die; and to the 
cry of those men and women who go down the street 
hatless, raving mad, wringing their hands and tearing 
their hair! This child cries, “Where is father and 
mother ? I wonder if they are burned up ?” And this 
man, seizing hold of another, cries, “/ wonder if this is 
the day of judgment ?” and another exclaims, “This is 
hell /” and an infidel, standing at the street-corner, cries 
out, “ Where is your God now ?” Carry out these sick 
children in your arms and fly! Wrap up that corpse 
and get it away from this funeral pyre! Lift that sick 
woman, wfith the child just born, opening its eyes in tor¬ 
ment ! Get out this life-long invalid, and do not stop 
for medicines or blankets, for the stairs are crumbling 
away—they are gone now! Quick! leap from the win¬ 
dow ! No use in flying to the water’s edge, for the army 
of horrors have crossed, and pulled up the bridges after 
them. With carts and drays, off to the prairies! The 
night may be cold, and the prospect hopeless, but any 
thing is better than the sting of these cinders, and the 
falling of these walls, and the wailing of this dying 
city. But how shall they get out? To the north— 
fire ! to the south— fire ! to the east— fire ! to the west 
—fire ! 

Alas for our beautiful sister! She stands looking 
down into the mirror of the lake at her scorched brow, 
and her bleeding cheek, and shivering with the horror 
of her own disfigurement. Oh bitter night of October 
the eighth! It was a furnace—an awful furnace—a 
furnace which was five miles long and one mile wide— 


124 THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 

a furnace not seven times heated, but seven hundred 
times heated. 

Yet deliverance is coming. Telegrams from Lon¬ 
don, from Edinburg, from Vienna, from New York, from 
Brooklyn—from two continents, announcing help. The 
Cincinnati and St. Louis freight trains come with the 
speed of an express, bearing food and blankets; and he 
who, when things looked dark in the Shenandoah Val¬ 
ley, got into lightning stirrups, has just in time ridden 
into the scene to spread tents for the shelterless, to scat¬ 
ter rations for the hungry, and to proclaim, in behalf of 
our national government, that a people who have barns 
full of corn, and tables full of bread, will not let Chica¬ 
go suffer. Lift up your head, O City of the Lakes! 
With bread enough and to spare, you shall not perish 
with hunger. Thank God that while nearly every thing 
was burned up in the city, there was enough powder 
and shot left to shoot down in their tracks the forty-one 
scoundrels who were found plundering the corpse of the 
dead city! 

It was an awful furnace! But it has passed, and now 
I see a light that gets brighter and brighter as it is fed 
by the alms, and sympathies, and prayers of a world. It 
is the glowing lamp, the cheerful lamp, the glorious 
lamp of God’s deliverance! 

From all this you learn, without any preacher telling 
you, that we are all one. The thrill of sympathy that 
went through all of this country, and through all of 
Europe, shows that we belong to one family. No more 
discussion between New York and Chicago as to which 
has the most swift-footed enterprise; no more conten¬ 
tion between St. Louis and Chicago as to which is the 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


125 


most prominent city, but all the people, white, black, and 
copper-colored, Protestant and Catholic, find their hearts 
thrilled with the impulse of one common brotherhood. 

There are those who do not like this idea. They say 
that God made the Indian, and set him down this side 
of the Atlantic, and the Spaniard on the other side, and 
the African, and placed him in the snaky jungles, and so 
on, and that then from these different representative men 
the human family descended. But Paul knocks down 
that idea when, standing in the presence of one of the 
most aristocratic audiences of the world, he proclaims, in 
the name of God, this democratic doctrine, “ God hath 
made of one blood all the nations of men.” They start¬ 
ed from one garden, and they fell in one transgression; 
they are redeemed by the same almighty grace, and are 
to shine forever in the same heavenly kingdom. 

This feeling of consanguinity is constantly illustrated. 
A mine in England falls upon the workmen, and all na¬ 
tions feel the suffocation. Prince Albert dies, and Vic¬ 
toria has the sympathy of all Christendom. A plague 
falls upon London, and all the cities of the world weep 
at her agonies. An earthquake rocks down a Mexican 
city, and both hemispheres feel the shock. Famine stalks 
through Ireland, and distant nations send their cargoes 
of bread. 

In 1863 a fire occurred in Santiago, Chili, that wrought 
worse damages than this Chicago fire, so far as the de¬ 
struction of human life is considered. The Conception 
of the Virgin Mary was being celebrated in the Roman 
Catholic church at Santiago. Great preparations had 
been made for the occasion, and perhaps the most won¬ 
derful scene ever witnessed in any church was about to 


126 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


be evoked. The wealth, and pomp, and intellect of that 
Chilian capital poured into the cathedral, and knelt be¬ 
side the poorest devotee w T ith cross and beads. Ima¬ 
ges, statues, transparencies, swaying festoons, and twenty 
thousand lamps, among which swung costly gauze and 
delicate draperies, like mists staggering, sunstruck, up 
the mountain. A camphene lamp explodes, and the 
flame leaps from point to point, and in fifteen minutes 
twenty-five hundred souls have passed up through the 
fire to meet their God. What of that ? Why need we 
care about it ? They were of a different nation and of a 
different religion. Ah! the groan of that dying multi¬ 
tude mounted the Cordilleras, and the sorrow came sob¬ 
bing across the Caribbean, and all civilized nations felt 
a thrill of sympathy and an impulse to prayer. 

I know that this idea of a common origin is distasteful 
to some of high pretension; but the most lordly man’s 
ancestry, like ours, was in Eden built out of red mud. 
What then ? Will you bring all men down to a dead 
level? No. If you did, they would not stay there fif¬ 
teen minutes. IIow then? Let every man have just 
what he achieves. There ought to be an aristocracy— 
not one built upon the accidents of wealth or celebrated 
ancestry, but an aristocracy of industry and of large- 
hearted deeds. Meanwhile, let it be understood that 
sceptre and shovel are brothers. The epaulette has no 
right to overlay the blacksmith’s apron. Brocades must 
not despise calicoes. With your extravagant viands you 
have no right to cover up my plain bread. Cathedral 
must not look down upon sailor’s bethel. The whole 
Gospel tendency is to bring together what are called the 
higher and lower classes. Christ came from a throne 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


127 


to a manger to bridge tlie distance between the two; 
and this idea of the nineteenth century, which would 
put the rich in churches by themselves, and the poor in 
churches by themselves, is an erroneous, unevangelical, 
heathenish, God-defying, and damning plan, which I shall 
war against to my dying day. 

This doctrine of universal brotherhood will not make 
all alike. Differences in soil and climate will make dif¬ 
ferences in men. As with plants and animals, so with 
men. The torrid zone will yield the yams and tama¬ 
rinds, and the best culture will only make better yams 
and tamarinds. The wintry regions will yield the bar-* 
ley and berries; and culture will only make this differ¬ 
ence, that they will produce better barley and larger ber¬ 
ries. You will not expect to find the same vegetable 
products in Paraguay as in Lapland. Cloves and cher¬ 
ries can not well drink the same air. Nutmegs and 
currants will not grow side by side. When God made 
one part of the earth, he said, “ You yield bananas 
and to another, “ You yield plums and pearsand that 
portion thrives best which attempts to produce and ex¬ 
port that which God ordained it to raise. So, in the ani¬ 
mal kingdom, you will not expect to find the ichneumon 
where you hunt for the otter and walrus. As with 
plants and animals, so with man. The tropical regions 
will make passionate natures, and arctic severities will. 
form temperaments cold, and stolid, and sullen. In the 
region of the Gospel there will be the same great nation¬ 
al characteristics as now, although somewhat moderated 
and modified. The Frenchman will be characteristical¬ 
ly polite; the German, persistent and plodding; the En¬ 
glish, self-reliant; the American, restless and enterpris- 


128 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


ing; the Italian, aesthetic; the Spaniard, quick and im¬ 
pulsive. Gospel triumphs will not steal the Scotchman’s 
plaid, or break the German’s pipe, or dash down the Ital¬ 
ian’s easel. Differences forever, but no quarrel. Christ 
spreading his treaty of peace over all monarchies and 
republics, the potentates, presidents, and princes of the 
earth will come up and sign it. Vessels of war, anchor¬ 
ed at the ship-yards, and changed into merchantmen, or 
swung into the navy yard, to be kept as relics of a bar¬ 
barous age, to be looked upon as in our museums we 
now examine scalping-knives and thumb-screw T s. The 
'masterly treatises on military tactics w T ill be sold for 
wrapping-paper, or kept for curious examination, as we 
now have in our libraries an old Koran or a Chinese Al¬ 
manac. The surgical discoveries made in the treatment 
of gun-shot fractures will be employed in alleviating the 
accidents to laborer, farmer, and mechanic. The ham¬ 
mer of the shipwright, as it beats against the spikes in 
the ship’s beam, will sound “Life /” “Life /” instead of, 
as now, rattling “Death /” “Death /” 

What! is the Gospel going to take all the spirit and 
pluck out of the race ? Shall our mariners be impressed, 
and the government seek no indemnity ? Shall our mer¬ 
chant ships be damaged on the high seas, and no repara¬ 
tion be demanded ? Shall privateers be fitted out in for¬ 
eign ports, and there be no requisition for the loss suf¬ 
fered ? Shall nations repudiate, and there be no force 
of armies to compel the payment of the national debt? 
Shall oppressed men suffer forever, when they might 
seize the sword and hew out their own deliverance? 
My answer to all these questions is, there will be no 
wrong, no imposition, no outrage, and, consequently, no 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


129 


collision. O day of universal brotherhood, begin! It 
comes skipping upon the mountains, and singing through 
the vales. I hear its footsteps in the tread of the multi¬ 
tudes of the devout this day, on their way to church. I 
hear its voice in the billowing up of that great song of 
praise that this night rises from all the churches of God, 
illuminated for worship. I see its banner lifted upon 
the fallen ramparts of great iniquities, the folds of light 
streaming with the stars of promise and good cheer. 
This wave of Gospel influence dashes higher up toward 
full tide. This song of joy, now tremulous and faint, 
will burst into million-voiced acclaim. The towers that 
have so long been tolling the sorrows of the world shall 
peal another sound—Scotch kirk, and American church, 
and mission chapel, and great St. Paul’s, chiming the 
clear, sweet, silvery song of the Millennium. The Church 
of God, no more a barrack for fighting Christians, shall 
become a great temple, on whose walls shall be hung 
olive-branches of peace. The flags of all nations, once 
carried in front of hostile armies, shall hang in graceful 
festoons above .those who once -were full of hate. The 
“ Marseillaise Hymn,” and “ Bonny Doon,” and “ Hail 
Columbia,” and “ God save the Queen,” shall mingle in 
one great song; but, touched into resurrection, it shall 
mount into a harmony of unimagined sweetness and 
power, that shall soar, and melt, and pour into the halle¬ 
lujah that, like the voice of many waters, and the voice of 
mighty thunders, comes surging up to the feet of Jesus. 

Again : I learn from this Chicago disaster what a poor 
place the earth is to put our treasures in. Two hundred 
and fifty million dollars of property destroyed in a day 
and a night! How much toil of brain, $nd hand, and 


130 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


foot represented in that property! All the anxiety and 
sweat of twenty years gone in one day of destruction. 
We have been accustomed to think^that if property were 
insured, all was well. But even insurance companies 
have gone down. Set not your affections on any thing 
you can build, for it is perishable. Do not worship your 
fine reputation, or your wealthy store, or your large house, 
or your swift ship, but build up in your soul a temple of 
Christian character. Disasters can not crush it, nor fire 
consume it, nor iconoclast deface its altars, nor time 
chisel down its walls. Yet politicians have worshiped 
their office, and merchants their business, and painters 
their pictures, and musicians their attainments, and ar¬ 
chitects their buildings, and historians their books ; and 
how often have they seen their works perish ! Audubon, 
after fifteen years of working in making sketches of 
birds, leaves the sketches in a trunk, goes off, comes back, 
and finds that the rats have devoured them. Isaac New¬ 
ton’s dog, “ Spot,” tore to pieces a manuscript that repre¬ 
sented the work of a quarter of a lifetime. A worm has 
sunk the ship that was the pride of its builder. A child’s 
hand has spoiled a painting intended to be immortal. A 
horse's hoof dashed out the brain of a most accomplished 
philosopher. The marble statue that came out, under 
the stroke of an ingenious sculptor, drops on the sidewalk 
and is broken by a careless drayman. Time will break 
down grandest arch, and stanchest pyramid, and might¬ 
iest city. The day will come when reconstructed Chica¬ 
go, and New York, and Brooklyn, and Boston, and Sa¬ 
vannah, and Charleston, and New Orleans, and Cincin¬ 
nati, and St. Louis, and San Francisco, and London^ and 
Paris, and Vienna, and Borne, and Constantinople, and 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


131 


St. Petersburg, and Madras, and Canton, and Pekin will 
be wrapped in flame of awful conflagration. Yea, the 
earth itself shall perish! What a poor place to put one’s 
treasure in! A painter, busy in making the fresco of a 
building, standing high up on the scaffolding, was en¬ 
tranced with his own work, and stepped back to admire 
it, and in his excitement forgot that he stood upon a high 
scaffolding, stepped back too far, and fell—his life dash¬ 
ed out, far beneath, on the marble. So men admire their 
worldly achievements, and in their enchantment step 
back to look, and step back too far, and fall—ruined for 
life and lost for eternity. 

Again : Learn from this last week’s calamity the beau¬ 
ty of heroism and self-denial. You have read how those 
flremen fought the flames until they fell dead in the fire; 
of how men, while their own dwellings were burning, 
helped the neighbors out of their dwellings. Scene after 
scene of self-denying heroism. How grand it.is, amid 
the selfishness of the world, to find such generous deeds! 
The Moravian missionaries were told that they could not 
enter the lazaretto where the lepers were dying unless 
they staid there. “ Then,” they said, “ we will go and 
stay there.” They went in to nurse the sick, and perish¬ 
ed. You have read the life of pure-hearted Elizabeth 
Fry, toiling among the degraded. But the full biogra¬ 
phies of the world’s martyrs will never be written. The 
firemen in all our cities who have rescued people from 
blazing buildings; the sailors who have helped the pas¬ 
sengers off the wreck, themselves perishing; the nurses 
who have waited upon the sick in yellow-fever and chol¬ 
era hospitals, and sunk down to death from exhaustion; 
the Christian men who, on the battle-field, have adminis- 


132 


THE BUHNING OF CHICAGO. 


tered to the fallen amid rattling canister and bursting 
shell; the Christian women who have gone down through 
haunts of shame on errands of mercy, defended by no 
human arm, but looked after by that God who, with his 
lightnings, would have struck to hell any who dared to 
do them harm. 

Christian heroism has ever been ready to face the fire, 
and swim the flood, and dare the storm, if good might be 
done. And in that day when men who sat in places of 
power shall go down to shame and contempt, these hum¬ 
ble ones shall have their names written high on the pil¬ 
lars of heaven. Better than to have, been commemorated 
in poetry or song will it be for them who hear the good 
cheer from Christ, “ I was hungry, and ye fed me; I was 
sick, and ye visited me. Enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord!” 

Again : Learn from this disaster the importance of be¬ 
ing prepared for the great future. Five hundred people 
were known to have perished; I fear there were many 
more. They had no time for preparation. The poorest 
time for the last twenty years, in Chicago, to pray was 
last Sunday night. How can one pray when his children 
are burning or his house being consumed ? Many of you 
are daily exposed to perils. You walk on scaffoldings; 
you drive fractious animals; you fly over the country on 
swift wheels; you work among dangerous chemicals. 
The voice that comes on the west wind to-night says, 
“ Prepare to meet thy God.” By the revolutions of the 
days and nights you are hurried on to your last hour of 
earth and your first hour of eternity. Sleeping and wak¬ 
ing, your heart beats the double quickstep of an immor¬ 
tal spirit. See you not, through the fogs and mists of 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


133 


earth, in the distance, the looming np of the heavenly 
shore, over which white-robed inhabitants walk, forever 
free from toil and pain, and sin and tears ? Hark to the 
cry that comes over the waters from castles of the bless¬ 
ed, from the lips of princes, robed and garlanded, from 
harps that never felt the rough twang of woe, and from 
trumpets that peal forth the victory of many conquerors. 
The trees of God bend with immortal fruitage, and un¬ 
der them rest the toil-worn of earth, looking down toward 
you, ready at your coming up to shout, amid the rustle 
of palms and the clang of celestial towers, “ Hail! hail!” 

But there is an obligation growing out of this service, 
and that is the duty of giving prompt'relief to the house¬ 
less, homeless, exhausted, and dying sufferers of Chica¬ 
go. They want something besides “ God bless yous”— 
namely, tippets, and sacques, and shoes, and hats, and 
coats, and dresses—yea, all the articles of a winter’s 
wardrobe. Out of the charred and smoking ruins there 
are stretched up the hands of more than one hundred 
and fifty thousand people begging for help, and from 
blistered and bleeding lips they cry out, “We are hun- 
gry; give us bread! We are freezing; give us clothes! 
We are homeless; give us shelter! We are sick; give 
us cordialsl” Forever blasted will be that ear that re¬ 
fuses to listen! Forever palsied will be that hand that 
refuses to help! 

I plead in behalf of cripples by the flames robbed of 
their crutch; in behalf of toiling women, whose sewing- 
machines have been burned up; in behalf of the orphans 
whose fathers were crushed under the falling walls; in 
behalf of women whose hour of anguish has come, and 
there is no pillow, and there is no roof; in behalf of 


134 


THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 


brave firemen, whose legs were shattered when the lad¬ 
ders broke—yea, in behalf of Him who said, “ Inasmuch 
as ye did it unto these my brethren, ye did it unto me.” 

You will not turn your back on this suffering. Your 
bed to-night will be softer if you feel that you have pro¬ 
vided some sufferer with a mattress to lie on. Your 
own food will be sweeter if you make provision for the 
hunger-struck. Your own children will seem brighter- 
faced if you provide stockings for the little bare feet. 

Get ready for a grand contribution of money and 
clothes. When the box comes around, let it seem like 
the wasted hand of suffering stretched out for help. Let 
the church officials move slowly down the aisles as they 
gather the alms, remembering that the amount they 
gather will decide whether some groaning man or wom¬ 
an shall live or perish. As in the last day we hope to 
find mercy of the Lord, let us to-night show mercy to 
others. 

O thou self-denying one of Gethsemane and the cross, 
drop upon us thy Spirit. 


THE HAERT ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 


135 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 

“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: 
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A 
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; 
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you 
a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you .”—Ezekiel xxxvi., 
25,26,27. 

r I "'HE Presbyterian Church has recently made its re- 
port, and, according to one of the prominent jour¬ 
nals of the denomination, there has been an average of 
a little more than one conversion to each Church. The 
most appalling statistic of the day! There is a dearth 
in all denominations. Millions of dollars for ministers’ 
salary; millions of dollars for choirs ; millions of dollars 
for church buildings. Where is the return for the in¬ 
vestment ? You say that one soul saved is worth more 
than all that money. True enough; but be frank, and 
confess that, considering the great outlay, the religious 
advantage reaped has been insignificant. What is the 
matter ? I think, in trying to adapt the Gospel to the 
age , men have crippled the Gospel. Starting with the 
idea that the people will not come to church if the old- 
fashioned doctrines of grace are presented, they have not 
sufficiently insisted upon the first theory of the Gospel, 
namely, the utter ruin and pollution of the natural 
heart. , The inference in many of our churches is, “Now, 
you are a very good set of fellows; not as good as you 
might be, and in some respects, indeed—if we must say 


136 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 


it — quite wrong; but, then, we are hoping every thing 
from education, refinement, the influence of the nine¬ 
teenth century, and a genteel religionand so we have 
gone to tinkering the human heart with soft solder, and 
putting a few patches on the coat of morality, when it is 
all worn out. We have harped on the theory of devel¬ 
opment, and hoped that man, who, according to the sci¬ 
entists, began as a monkey, will go on improving until, 
after a while, under each arm will be felt sprouting the 
feathers of an angel’s wing. There is nothing but a 
little pimple on the soul, which needs a piece of court- 
plaster. 

My friends, depend upon it that is all wrong. It is 
infamous to try with human quackery to cure the cancer 
of the soul. The reason that more men are not saved is 
because we do not show their infinite need, their ruin— 
yea, the rottenness of the human heart. If I am very 
sick, and I call in a doctor, I do not want him to begin 
telling me that there is nothing special the matter with 
me, and that all that I need is a little panada, or gruel, 
or catnip tea, when I want the most radical and thor¬ 
ough treatment, or in a week I am a dead man. 

The Bible is either a truth or a lie. If it be a lie, cast 
it out and shut up your churches. If it be true, listen 
to Paul in Ephesians, where he says,“ We are by nature 
children of wrathto Jeremiah, who says, “ The heart 
is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked 
to Moses, who says, “ The imagination of a man’s heart 
is evil from his youthto the Psalmist, who says, “ They 
are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy.” 

Ah! sin is no half-and-half thing. The human heart 
is not in a tolerable condition. The Bible, in the most 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 137 

uncomplimentary manner, says that we are poor and 
wretched, and blind and naked; and if God should send 
his Spirit upon us to-night, making revelation of our 
true state, how many quick-beating hearts! how many 
blanched cheeks! And some soul in this audience, no 
longer able to keep silence, would cry out, “ What must 
I do ? Whither shall I fly ? God be merciful to me, a 
sinner!” It is not one screw loose, or one rivet dropped 
out: it is a rail-train at Revere run into by a Bangor ex¬ 
press, telescoped and crushed, amid the shrieking hor¬ 
rors of death. 

Pray for me to-day, that, varnishing nothing over, 
compromising nothing, holding back nothing, I may pre¬ 
sent to you the true condition of every unregenerated 
heart. 

First: It is unclean. “From your filthiness will I 
cleanse you.” Our hands may be clean as water can 
wash them, and our garments as white as snow, and yet 
our inward nature be polluted. Sin is not like wine, 
that gets better by being kept; it gets worse and worse. 
All the impure thoughts of your life have left their mark 
on your soul. Though a bad thought passed through 
your mind thirty years ago, its vileness is there yet. If 
you have had one thousand unclean thoughts which you 
would not have any one know, those one thousand 
thoughts are all rankling, festering, and befouling your 
soul, and God has been looking at them all the while. 
The text is not too strong when it speaks of the filthiness 
of the heart. Your soul is vilely, terribly unclean. It 
is loathsome in the sight of God. Sin is a carrion bird 
that has strewn its nest with foulness. I only take the 
Bible imagery when I say that your heart, unchanged, is 


138 THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 

a sepulchre, reeking and stenchful with corruption. 
Water can not wash it off. Fire can not burn it. Sin 
has cursed you through and through. The mire has 
been rubbed into the soul. It is a leprosy. People who 
had that disease in the olden time put bandages over 
their mouths as they walked in the street, and cried 
“ Unclean!” And if we could realize our moral defile¬ 
ment as we advance, we would cry, “ Make room for the 
leper! room!” The Arabs have a fable that once a 
camel came to the door of a tent and thrust in his nose; 
not being resisted, he thrust in his feet; there being no 
liinderance, he came half way in; after a while he got 
all the way in; the Arab said to the camel, “ This tent 
is too small for two.” Then the camel said to the Arab, 
“If that be so, you had better leave.” So sin comes 
into the heart farther and farther, until it takes full pos¬ 
session. Byron and Shelley wreathed sin with garlands^ 
but I tear off the flowers from the skeleton, and hold out 
before you the reeking Death’s-head. Oh, how sin has 
trampled and scarred your soul! It is a black, a horri¬ 
ble, a damning thing. It is not satisfied until it has 
pushed the soul into an eternal prison - house, and 
slammed shut the door, and shoved the bolts, and turned 
the locks of an everlasting incarceration. A heart un¬ 
der such unclean sorcery, how it must appear to God’s 
all-searching eye! He sees it through and through. 
The darkness can not hide it. Years can not erase it. 
He sees the horrible unwinding of the serpents as, with 
fangs of eternal poison, they lift their heads to strike. 
Think of the Holy One before whom seraphic purity is 
sullied—the One in whose quiver are all the thunder¬ 
bolts of an omnipotent God—watching a soul unclean , 
and willfully unclean. 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 


Again: The text represents the heart as idolatrous. 
“ From all your idols will I cleanse you.” Because we 
have here no Juggernauts, or Molochs, or Joss-houses, or 
heathen temples, do not conclude that there are no idols. 
From our very nature we must worship something. If 
we do not worship the God in heaven, we worship some¬ 
thing on earth. This man worships pleasure; this one, 
applause; this one, money; this one, his family. That 
to which a man gives his supreme thought and affections 
is his idol. Like Dagon, how often it falls down, crush¬ 
ing its worshiper ! God will have no rivals. Amid fire 
and darkness, thunder and earthquake, the command 
went forth, “ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and 
him only shalt thou serve.” If there is any thing on 
earth that you think more of than you dp of God, then 
you are an idolater. 

Again: The text represents the heart as stony or in¬ 
sensible. I prove it by the fact that we do not realize 
the truth of what we have already said. If we had any 
appreciation of our unclean and idolatrous nature, could 
we be as unmoved as we are? Would that young man 
be whispering to his comrade? Would that woman be 
examining the style of her neighbor’s hat, and criticising 
how poorly the color of the ribbon suits the color of her 
shawl ? Would this merchant be thinking of how much 
he lost last week, and how much he probably will gain 
next week ? JSTo; this place would be like a court-house 
wdien a man is on trial for his life, and the jury rises to 
render the verdict. That is our position. Before God’s 
universe we have been indicted. The law has plead 
against us. The cross has plead for us. This night may 
be announced our condemnation or our acquittal. We 


140 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 


are insensible. I saw men walking through the Louvre 
Gallery in Paris half asleep; no flash came to their 
eyes, no flush to their cheeks, no exclamation to their 
lips, amid the most thrilling triumphs of painter’s pencil 
and sculptor’s chisel. And so, until grace touches our 
soul, we walk through the great picture-gallery of the 
Gospel, and the wonders of Christ and the glories of 
heaven strike no thrill through the heart. Ah! there 
are hundreds of people here who acknowledge that their 
heart is hard; they carry it about like a cake of ice in 
their bosom; they wish it would melt; they say,“I can 
not feel; I want to, but can not.” The text is true. 
Cold as a stone; hard as a stone; dead as a stone. A 
company of persons suspected of crime were brought be¬ 
fore a judge; only one of them was guilty,but how to 
find out which one was the question. The judge put his 
ear against the heart of each one and listened; when he 
came to the guilty one, he heard, in every thump of his 
heart, the acknowledgment of the crime. And so, al¬ 
though to-night all may seem fair in our case, if we 
could listen at the door of our own hearts, every pulsa¬ 
tion would confess, Guilty! Guilty! 

But I will not leave you here. lie would be a very 
mean doctor who would come and examine your case 
and say, “You are very badly off indeed,” and then pro¬ 
pose nothing as a cure. I have told you of the disease. 
Hear now of the healing process that God proposes for 
every one of you: “I will sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall be clean. A new heart also will I 
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I 
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I 
will give you a heart of flesh.” 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 


141 


Ah! it is no insignificant process, this change of heart. 
It is a change from black to white, from down to up, 
from the highway to hell to the highway to heaven—the 
whole nature'made over again. 

Scene the First: Paul, the persecutor. He says, “ Kill 
that man; he loves Christ. Whip that woman; she be¬ 
lieves in Jesus. Open the prison-doors, and get ready 
the sharp knives, and we will put an end to Christ’s re¬ 
ligion. Bring up my horses—fetch up a troop of horses, 
and let us dash down to Damascus and exterminate this 
religion. Mount and away!” I hear the quick clatter 
of the swift hoofs as they dash off. 

Scene the Second: Paul’s back bared to the scourge, 
and the blood running. For whom? For Jesus. Paul 
on the floor of the Mamertine Prison, his feet fast, and 
the cold shivering through his agonized body. For 
whom? For Jesus. Paul standing before the rulers, 
making a speech that would have thrilled another au¬ 
dience into tumults of approval, yet interrupted, scoffed 
at, coughed down, charged with being crazy, and sen¬ 
tenced to die. For whom? For Jesus. 

Scene the First: John Bunyan. Born of a low gip¬ 
sy woman, himself vulgar and blasphemous, shocking 
the ears of those only ordinarily polluted, reproved even 
by an abandoned woman. 

Scene the Second: John Bunyan, from the wicket- 
door of the prison looking toward the “ delectable moun¬ 
tains,” and pointing the whole world up to the gate of 
the Celestial City. What was this change in John ? A 
change of heart. 

But why go so far ? I point them out by hundreds in 
this audience. Here are men who once rejected the Bi- 


142 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 


ble, cared not for God, talked against high heaven, but 
now all their hopes are hung on one strong nail — the 
nail of the Cross. One form is to them more glorious 
than any other—the form of the Son of God. “ I take 
him,” they cry, “ through joy and sorrow, through fire 
and flood, for time and for eternity. None but Jesus! 
none but Jesus 1” They would stick to him though the 
guillotine flashed its bloody knife in their faces. They 
have a new heart—new in its sentiments, new in its 
hopes, new in its affections, new in its ambitions. 

“ Well,” you say, “ how queer a man must feel to turn 
around like that.” The change is wonderful. If, now, 
you hate somebody with a perfect hatred, one of your 
first desires would be, after such change, to go and shake 
hands with him. If, now, your chief aim is to gain dol¬ 
lars, then you would be more anxious for a fortune in the 
skies. Now you shudder at the thought of eternity; then 
the w r ord w T ould chime like wedding-bells in your soul. 

“ Oh l” you say, “ I want that religion. Let me have 
it now.” My text tells you how you may get it. Take 
that stone of a heart, and dash it against the foot of the 
cross, and the heart would not break. Water has some¬ 
times w T orn away the rocks; but if that stone of a heart 
were placed under the water that drops from the eter¬ 
nal fountain, the hardness would not wear away. God 
says in the text, “I will put my Spirit within you.” 
Now I understand. God’s holy, gracious, quickening, 
arousing, rekindling, omnipotent Spirit only can do it. 
That Spirit comes to every one of your hearts to-night. 
There a man says, “Oh for something better!” That is 
a stroke of God’s Spirit. Here a man says, “ I wish I 
could be something like my old father and mother be- 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT. 143 

fore they died.” That was a stroke of God’s Spirit. 
Here is a man who says, “ I wish I could get over these 
perplexities about the future world.” That is a stroke 
of God’s Spirit. Yonder is a man who looks all uncon¬ 
cerned, but he trembles. He knows that eternity is all 
around him, and that one step may plunge him beyond 
all rescue. O eternity! eternity! eternity! How many 
here feel that they are not ready for it! They know 
that they are keeping their old nature, and that except a 
man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God. 
Oh that God’s Spirit would strike harder to-night, and 
that each one of these citadels might be captured! For¬ 
ward, ye troops of light. Wheel round the thundering 
field-pieces of God’s law. Let the arrows of conviction 
shower the soul. Charge! charge! Up! on the para- 
pefs with the standards of Immanuel! Surrender, oh 
immortal man ! Surrender, 0I1 immortal woman! You 
want a new heart. Why not get it right away ? Have 
you not postponed it long enough ? I would with both 
hands lay hold and rattle the gates of your soul. For 
this night’s work you and I must answer when the earth 
is burning, and God is coming, and the trumpet is sound¬ 
ing, and the song of the righteous shall rise into a per¬ 
petual anthem, and the wail of the wicked drop into the 
groan of unending pain. 

Oh man and woman of many broken resolutions, when 
you were on the sea in that storm you vowed; when you 
had that great sickness you vowed; when that last child 
was born you vowed; when, you stood in that wreck of 
a rail-train you vowed; when you were bending over 
the grave of some loved one you vowed; when, in some 
great revival, there was a stampede-for heaven, you vow¬ 
ed. These vows have been broken. Here you are, get- 


THE HEART ALL WRONG MADE ALL RIGHT 


ting older. You have marched many a mile on toward 
the end of your earthly journey, and the opening of your 
eternal destiny. No pardon, no peace, no prospect of 
heaven. O Lord God, lay hold of that man! If this 
be his last chance, tell him so. Let him not plunge off 
where there are no soundings. I have no sympathy with 
that cowardice that dare not speak of future punish¬ 
ment without apology, and that thinks the word “hell” 
too vulgar to be used in polite assemblies. 

The storm is coming; the cloud that was only a speck 
of darkness on the sky has become a squadron of black 
sails, and the port-holes of the thunder are opening for 
the cannonade in which all those who reject God shall 
go down. Canst contend with him who smote Senna¬ 
cherib’s host in a night, and whose arm upholds the uni¬ 
verse, and whose voice shall announce the doom of all 
the dead ? I tremble to offend him. Rather would I 
have all heaven and hell arrayed against me than to 
stand one moment in the darkness of his frown. Trem¬ 
ble, oh unforgiven soul, tremble before him. The God 
in whose hands is thy breath is angry with thee. Wilt 
thou defy him any longer? Wilt thou run upon the 
thick bosses of his buckler ? Who will bail thee out of 
the prison-house of despair ? Who will help thee ashore 
from an eternal shipwreck? I take the words of the 
prophet and cry out, “ Who among ns shall dwell with 
the devouring fire ? who among us shall dwell with ever¬ 
lasting burnings ?” 

The gate of refuge is open—it is wide open. The 
Spirit of God, with flying feet, will bear thee within if 
thou wilt. Let not the bells of eternity toll the death- 
knell of thy soul. Escape for thy life, lest thou be con¬ 
sumed. 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


145 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH. 

“Iam escaped with the skin of my teeth .”—Job xix., 20. 

J OB had it hard. What with boils, and bereavements, 
and bankruptcy, and a fool of a wife, he wished he 
was dead; and I do not blame him. His flesh was gone, 
and his bones were dry. His teeth wasted away until 
nothing but the enamel seemed left. He cries out, “ I 
am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” 

There has been some difference of opinion about this 
passage. St. Jerome,and Schultens, and Doctors Good, 
and Poole, and Barnes, have all tried their forceps on 
Job’s teeth. You deny my interpretation, and say, 
“What did Job know about the enamel of the teeth?” 
He knew every thing about it. Dental surgery is almost 
as old as the earth. The mummies of Egypt, thousands 
of years old, are found to-day with gold-filling in their 
teeth. Ovid, and Horace, and Solomon, and Moses wrote 
about these important factors of the body. To other pro¬ 
voking complaints, Job, I think, has added an exaspera¬ 
ting toothache, and, putting his hand against the inflamed 
face, he says, “ I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” 

A very narrow escape, you say, for Job’s body and 
soul; but there are thousands of men who make just as 
narrow escape for their soul. There was a time when 
the partition between them and ruin was no thicker than 
a tooth’s ^enamel; but, as Job finally escaped, so have 
they. Thank God ! thank God! 

G 


146 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


Paul expresses the same idea by a different figure when 
he says that some people are “ saved as by fire? A ves¬ 
sel at sea is in flames. You go to the stern of the vessel. 
The boats have shoved off. The flames advance; you 
can endure the heat no longer on your face. You slide 
down on the side of the vessel, and hold on with your 
fingers, until the forked tongue of the fire begins to lick 
the back of your hand, and you feel that you must fall, 
when one of the life-boats comes back, and the passen¬ 
gers say they think they have room for one more. The 
boat swings under you — you drop into it — you are 
saved. 

So some men are pursued by temptation until they are 
partially consumed, but after all get off—“ saved as by 
fire.” 

But I like the figure of Job a little better than that of 
Paul, because the pulpit has not worn it out; and I want 
to show you, if God will help, that some men make nar¬ 
row escape for their squls, and are saved as “ with the 
shin of their teeth? 

It is as easy for some people to look to the Cross as for 
you to look to this pulpit. Mild, gentle, tractable, lov¬ 
ing, you expect them to become Christians. You go 
over to the store and say, u Gran don joined the Church 
yesterday.” Your business comrades say, “ That is just 
what might have been expected; he always was of that 
turn of mind.” In youth, this person whom I describe 
was always good. He never broke things. He never 
laughed when it was improper to laugh. At seven, he 
could sit an hour in church,.perfectly quiet, looking nei¬ 
ther to the right hand nor to the left, but straight into 
the eyes of the minister, as though he understood the 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


147 


whole discussion about the eternal decrees. He never 
upset things, nor lost them. He floated into the king¬ 
dom of God so gradually that it is uncertain just when 
the matter was decided. 

Here is another one, who started in life with an uncon¬ 
trollable spirit. He kept the nursery in an uproar. His 
mother found him walking on the edge of the house-roof 
to see if he could balance himself. There was no horse 
that he dared not ride—no tree he could not climb. His 
boyhood was a long series of predicaments; his manhood 
was reckless; his midlife very wayward. But now he 
is converted, and you go over to the store and say, “Ark¬ 
wright joined the Church yesterday.” Your friends say, 
“It is not possible! You must be joking.” You say, 
“Ho; I tell you the truth*. He joined the Church.” 
Then they reply, “ There is hope for any of us if old Ark¬ 
wright has become a Christian!” 

In other words, we all admit that it is more difficult 
for some men to accept the Gospel than for others. 

I may be preaching to some who have cut loose from 
churches, and Bibles, and Sundays, and who have come 
in here with no intention of becoming Christians them¬ 
selves, but just to see what is going on; and yet. you may 
find yourself escaping, before you leave this house, as 
“ with the skin of your teeth.” I do not expect to w T aste 
this hour. I have seen boats go off from Cape May or 
Long Branch, and drop their nets, and after a while come 
ashore, pulling in the nets without having caught a single 
fish. It was not a good day, or they had not the right 
kind of a net. But we expect no such excursion to-night. 
The water is full of fish ; the wind is in the bright direc¬ 
tion ; the Gospel net is strong. 0 Thou who didst help 


148 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


Simon and Andrew to fish, show ns to-night how to cast 
the net on the right side of the ship! 

Some of you, in coming to God, will have to run 
against skeptical notions. Itfis useless for people to say 
sharp and cutting things to those who reject the Chris¬ 
tian religion. I can not say such things. By what pro¬ 
cess of temptation, or trial, or betrayal you have come to 
your present state, I know not. There are two gates to 
your nature : the gate of the head, and the gate of the 
heart. The gate of your head is locked with bolts and 
bars that an archangel could not break, but the gate of 
your heart swings easily on its hinges. If I assaulted 
your body with weapons you would meet me with weap¬ 
ons, and it would be sword-stroke for sword-stroke, and 
wound for wound, and blood for blood; but if I come 
and knock at the door of your house, you open it, and 
give me the best seat in your parlor. If I should come 
at you to-night with an argument, you would answer me 
with an argument; if with sarcasm, you would answer 
me with sarcasm; blow for blow, stroke for stroke ; but 
when I come and knock at the door of your heart, you 
open it and say, “ Come in, my brother, and tell me all 
you know about Christ and heaven.” 

Listen to two or three questions : Are you as happy as 
you used to be when you believed in the truth of the 
Christian religion? Would you like to have your chil¬ 
dren travel on in the road in which you are now travel¬ 
ing ? # You had a relative who professed to be a Christian, 
and was thoroughly consistent, living and dying in the 
faith of the Gospel. Would you not like to live the same 
quiet life, ^nd die the same peaceful death ? I hold in 
my hand a letter, sent me by one who has rejected the 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


149 


Christian religion. It says, “ I am old enough to know 
that the joys and pleasures of life are evanescent, and to 
realize the fact that it must be comfortable in old age to 
believe in something relative to the future, and to have a 
faith in some system that proposes to save. I am free to 
confess that I would be happier if I could exercise the 
simple and beautiful faith that is possessed by many 
whom I know. I am not willingly out of the Church 
or out of the faith. My state of uncertainty is one of 
unrest. Sometimes I doubt my immortality, and look 
upon the death-bed as the closing scene, after which there 
is nothing. What shall I do that I have not done ?” 
All! skepticism is a dark and doleful land. Let me say 
that this Bible is either true or false. If it be false, we 
are as well off as you; if it be true, then which of us is 
safer ? 

Let me also ask whether your trouble has not been 
that you confounded Christianity with the inconsistent 
character of some who profess it. You are a lawyer. 
In your profession there are mean and dishonest men. 
Is that any thing against the law? You are a doctor. 
There are unskilled and contemptible men in your pro¬ 
fession. Is that any thing against medicine ? You are 
a merchant. There are thieves and defrauders in your 
•business. Is that any thing against merchandise ? Be¬ 
hold, then, the unfairness of charging upon Christianity 
the wickedness of its. disciples. We admit some of the 
charges against those who profess religion. Some of the 
most gigantic swindles of the present day have been car¬ 
ried on by members of the Church. There are men 
standing in the front rank in the churches who would 
not be trusted for five dollars without good collateral 


150 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH. 


security. They leave their business dishonesties in the 
vestibule of the church as they go in and sit at the com¬ 
munion. Having concluded the sacrament, they get up, 
wipe the wine from their lips, go out, and take up their 
sins where they left off. To serve the devil is their reg¬ 
ular work; to serve God a sort of play-spell. With a 
Sunday sponge they expect to wipe off from their busi¬ 
ness slate all the past week’s inconsistencies. You have 
no more right to take such a man’s life as a specimen of 
religion than you have to take the twisted irons and split 
timbers that lie on the beach at Coney Island as a speci¬ 
men of an American ship. It is time that we drew a 
line between religion and the frailties of those who pro¬ 
fess it. 

Do you not feel that the Bible, take it all in all, is 
about the best book that the world has ever seen ? Do 
you know any book that has as much in it ? Do you 
not think, upon the w T hole, that its influence has been 
beneficent ? I come to you with both hands extended 
toward you. In one hand I have the Bible, and in the 
other I have nothing. This Bible in one hand I will sur¬ 
render forever just as soon as in my other hand you can 
put a book that is better. 

To-night I invite you back into the good old-fashioned 
religion of your fathers—to the God whom they wor¬ 
shiped, to the Bible they read, to the promises on which 
they leaned, to the cross on which they hung their eter¬ 
nal expectations. You have not been happy a day since 
you swung off; you will not be happy a minute until 
you swing back. 

Again: There may be some of you who, in the attempt 
after a Christian life, will have to run against powerful 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH. 


151 


passions and appetites. Perhaps it is a disposition to 
anger that you have to contend against; and perhaps, 
while in a very serious mood, you hear of something that 
makes you feel that you must swear <5r die. I know of 
a Christian man who was once so exasperated that he 
said to a mean customer, “ I can not swear at you my¬ 
self, for I am a member of the Church; but if you will 
go down stairs my partner in business will swear at you.” 
All your good resolutions heretofore have been torn to 
tatters by explosions of temper. Now there is no harm 
in getting mad if you only get mad at sin. You need to 
bridle and saddle these hot-breathed passions, and with 
them ride down injustice and wrong. There are a thou¬ 
sand things in the world that we ought to be mad at. 
There is no harm in getting red hot if you only bring to 
the forge that which needs hammering. A man who 
has no power of righteous indignation is an imbecile. 
But be sure it is a righteous indignation, and not a petu- 
lancy that blurs, and unravels, and depletes the sonl. 

.There is a large class of persons in midlife who have 
still in them appetites that were aroused in early man¬ 
hood, at a time when they prided themselves on being a 
“ little fast,” “ high livers,” “ free and easy,” “ hale fel¬ 
lows well met.” They are now paying in compound in¬ 
terest for troubles they collected twenty years ago. Some 
of you are trying to escape, and you will—yet very nar¬ 
rowly, “ as with the skin of your teeth.” God and your 
own soul only know what the struggle is. Omnipotent 
grace has pulled out many a soul that was deeper in the 
mire than you are. They line the beach of heaven— 
the multitude whom God has rescued from the thrall of 
suicidal habits. If you this day turn your back on the 


152 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH. 


wrong, and start anew, God will help you. Oh the weak¬ 
ness of human help! Men will sympathize for a while, 
and then turn yon off. If yon ask for their pardon, they 
will give it, and say they will try yon again; but, falling 
away again nnder the power of temptation, they cast you 
off forever. But God forgives seventy times seven ; yea, 
seven hundred times; yea, though this be the ten thou¬ 
sandth time, he is more earnest, more sympathetic, more 
helpful this last time than when you took your first mis¬ 
step. 

If, with all the influences favorable for a right life, 
men make so many mistakes, how much harder it is 
when, for instance, some appetite thrusts its iron grapple 
into the roots of the tongue, and pulls a man down with 
hands of destruction! If, under such circumstances, he 
break away, there will be no sport in the undertaking, no 
holiday enjoyment, but a struggle in which the wrestlers 
move from side to side, and bend, and twist, and watch 
for an opportunity to get in a heavier stroke, until with 
one final effort, in which the muscles are distended, and 
the veins stand out, and the blood starts, the swarthy hab¬ 
it falls under the knee of the victor—escaped at last as 
with the skin of his teeth. 

The ship “Emma,” bound from Gottenburg to Har¬ 
wich, was sailing on, when the man on the lookout saw 
something that he pronounced a vessel bottom up. There 
was something on it that looked like a sea-gull, but w^as 
afterward found to be a waving handkerchief. In the 
small boat the crew pushed out to the wreck, and found 
that it was a capsized vessel, and that three men had 
been digging their way out through the bottom of the 
ship. When the vessel capsized they had no means of 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH. 


153 


escape. The captain took his penknife and dug away 
through the planks until his knife broke. Then an old 
nail was found, with which they attempted to scrape 
their way up out of the darkness, each one working until 
his hand was wellnigh paralyzed, and he sank back faint 
and sick. After long and tedious work, the light broke 
through the bottom of the ship. A handkerchief was 
hoisted. Help came. They were taken on board the 
vessel and saved. Did ever men come so near a watery 
grave wuthout dropping into it? How narrowly.they 
escaped—escaped only “ with the shin of their teeth? 

There are men who have been capsized of evil pas¬ 
sions, and capsized mid ocean, and they are a thousand 
miles away from any shore of help.* They have for 
years been trying to dig their way out. They have been 
digging away, and digging away, but they can never be 
delivered unless to-night they will hoist some signal of 
distress. How r ever weak and feeble it may be, Christ 
will see it, and bear down upon the helpless craft, and 
take them on board; and it will be known on earth and 
in heaven how narrowly they escaped—“ escaped as with 
the skin of their teeth? 

There are others who, in attempting to come to God, 
must run between a great many business perplexities. 
If a man go over to business at ten o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, and comes away at three o’clock in the afternoon, he 
has some time for religion; but how shall you find time 
for religious contemplation when you are driven from 
sunrise until sunset, and have been for five years going 
behind in business, and are frequently dunned by credit¬ 
ors whom you can not pay, and when, from Monday 
morning until Saturday night, you are dodging bills that 
G 2 


154 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


you can not meet? You walk day by day in uncertain¬ 
ties that have kept your brain on fire for the past three 
years. Some, with less business troubles than you, have 
gone crazy. The clerk has heard a noise in the back 
counting-room, and gone in, and found the chief man of 
the firm a raving maniac; or the wife has heard the 
bang of a pistol in the back parlor, and gone in, stumb¬ 
ling over the dead body of her husband — a suicide. 
There are in this house to-night three hundred men pur¬ 
sued, harassed, trodden down, and scalped, of business 
perplexities, and which way to turn next they do not 
know. Now God will not be hard on you. He knows 
what obstacles are in the way of your being a Christian, 
and your first effort in the right direction he will crown 
with success. Do not let Satan, with cotton-bales, and 
kegs, and hogsheads, and counters, and stocks of unsala¬ 
ble goods, block up your way to heaven. Gather up all 
your energies. Tighten the girdle about your loins. 
Take an agonizing look into the face of God, and then 
say, “ Here goes one grand effort for life eternal,” and 
then bound away for heaven, escaping “ as with the sJcin 
of your teeth .” 

In the last day it will be found that Hugh Latimer, 
and John Knox, and Huss, and Ridley were not the 
greatest martyrs, but Christian men who went up incor¬ 
rupt from the contaminations and perplexities of Wall 
Street, Water Street, Pearl Street, Broad Street, State 
Street, and Third Street. On earth they were called 
brokers, or stock-jobbers, or retailers, or importers; but 
in heaven, Christian heroes. No fagots were heaped 
about their feet; no Inquisition demanded from them 
recantation ; no soldier aimed a pike at their heart; but 


BY TEE SKIN OF THE TEETH. # } 55 

they had mental tortures, compared with which all phys¬ 
ical consuming is as the breath of a spring morning. 

I find in the community a large class of men who 
have been so cheated, so lied about, so outrageously 
wronged, that they have lost their faith in every thing. 
In a world where every thing seems so topsy-turvy, they 
do not see how there can be any God. They are con¬ 
founded, and frenzied, and misanthropic. Elaborate ar¬ 
guments to prove to them the truth of Christianity, or 
the truth of any thing else, touch them nowhere. Hear 
me, all such men. I preach to you no rounded periods, 
no ornamental discourse; but I putTny hand on your 
shoulder, and invite you into the peace of the Gospel. 
Here is a rock on which.you may stand firm, though the 
waves dash against it harder than the Atlantic, pitching 
its surf clear above Eddystone Light-house. Do not 
charge upon God all these troubles of the world. As 
long as the world stuck to God, Gnd stuck to the world; 
but the earth seceded from his government, and hence 
all these outrages and all these woes. God is good. 
For many hundreds of years he has been, coaxing the 
world to come back to him; but the more he has coaxed, 
the more violent have men been in their resistance, and 
they have stepped back and stepped back until they have 
dropped into ruin. 

Try this God, ye who have had the blood-hounds after 
you, and who have thought that God had forgotten you. 
Try him, and see if he will not help. Try him, and see 
if he will not pardon. Try him, and see if he will not 
save. The flowers of spring have no bloom so sweet as 
the flowering of Christ’s affections. The sun hath no 
warmth compared with the glow of his heart. The 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


156 

waters have no refreshment like the fountain that will 
slake the thirst of thy soul. At the moment the rein¬ 
deer stands wfith his lip and nostril thrust into the cool 
mountain torrent, the hunter may be coming through the 
thicket. Without crackling a stick under his foot, he 
comes close by the stag, aims his gun, draws the trigger, 
and the poor thing rears in its death-agony and falls 
backward, its antlers crashing on the rocks; but the 
panting hart that drinks from the water-brooks of God’s 
promise shall never be fatally wounded, and shall never 
die. 

This world is a poor portion for your soul, oh business 
man! An Eastern king had graven upon his tomb two 
fingers, represented as sounding upon each other with a 
snap, and under them the motto, “ All is not worth that.” 
Apicius Coelius hanged himself because his steward in¬ 
formed him that he had only eighty thousand pounds 
sterling left. All of* this world’s riches make but a 
sma-ll inheritance for a soul. Bobespierre attempted to 
win the applause of the world ; but when he was dying, 
a woman came rushing through the crowd, crying to 
him, “ Murderer of my kindred, descend to hell, cover¬ 
ed with the curses of every mother in France!” Many 
who have expected the plaudits of the world have died 
under its Anathema Maranatha. 

Oh, find your peace in God. Make one strong pull 
for heaven. No half-way work will do it. There some¬ 
times comes a time on shipboard when every thing must 
be sacrificed to save the passengers. The cargo is noth¬ 
ing, the rigging nothing. The captain puts the trumpet 
to'his lip and shouts ,“Cut away*the mast!” Some of 
you have been tossed and driven, and you have, in your 


BY THE SKIN OF THE TEETH 


157 


effort to keep the world, well-nigh lost your soul. Until 
you have decided this matte/, let every thing else go. 
Overboard with all those other anxieties and burdens! 
You will have to drop the # sails of your pride, and cut 
away the mast. With one earnest cry for help, put your 
cause into the hand of him who helped Paul out of the 
breakers of Melita, and who, above the shrill blast of the 
wrathiest tempest that ever blackened the sky or shook 
the ocean, can hear the faintest imploration for mercy. 

I shall go home to-night feeling that some of you, who 
have considered your case as hopeless, will take heart 
again, and that with a blood-red earnestness, such as 
you have never experienced before, you will start for the 
good land of the Gospel—at last to look back, saying, 
“ What a great risk I ran ! Almost lost, but saved ! 
Just got through, and no more! Escaped by the skin 
of my teeth? 


158 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


THANKSGIVING DAY. 


“The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord .”—Psalm xxxiii., 5 . 

OOD, grand, old-fasliioned Thanksgiving Day has 



V-J come. Nothing conld stop it. It pressed on down 
through the weeks and months, its way lighted by burn¬ 
ing cities, or cleft by cavernous graves; now strewn with 
orange-blossoms, and then with funeral weeds; amid in¬ 
struments that piped “the quickstep” and drummed “the 
dead march.” Through the gates of this morning it 
came, carrying on one shoulder a sheaf of wheat, and on 
the other a shock of corn. Children, in holiday dress, 
hold up their hands to bless it, and old age goes out to 
bid it welcome, asking that it come in, and by the altars 
of God rest a while. Come in, oh day, fragrant with a 
thousand memories, and borne down under the weight 
of innumerable mercies, and tell to our thankful hearts 
how great is the goodness of God. 

An aged Christian man in Massachusetts recently 
died. Instead of the flowers usually put upon the biei* 
there was laid upon his coffin a sheaf of wheat fully 
ripe. Beautifully significant! Oh, that on the remains 
of this harvest year we might place, to-day, a sheaf of 
prayer, a sheaf of thanksgiving, a sheaf of joy fully 
ripe! 

By a sublime egotism man has come to appropriate 
this world to himself, when the fact is that our race is 
in a small minority. The instances of human life, as 


THANKSGIVING . DA Y. 


159 


compared with the instances of animal life, are not one 
to a million. We shall enlarge our ideas of God’s good¬ 
ness and come to a better understanding of the text if, 
before we come to look at the cup of our blessing, we 
look at the goodness of God to the irrational creation. 

Although nature is out of joint, yet even in its disrup¬ 
tion I am surprised to find the almost universal happi¬ 
ness of the animal creation. On a summer day, when 
the air and the grass are most populous with life, you 
will not hear a sound of distress unless, perchance, a 
heartless schoolboy has robbed a bird’s nest, or a hunter 
has broken a bird’s wing, or a pasture has been robbed 
of a lamb, and there goes up a bleating from the flocks. 
The whole earth is filled wdth animal delight — joy 
feathered, and scaled, and horned, and hoofed. The bee 
hums it; the frog croaks it; the squirrel chatters it; the 
quail whistles it; the lark carols it; the whale spouts it. 
The snail, the rhinoceros, the grizzly bear, the toad, the 
wasp, the spider, the shell-fish, have their homely delights 
—joy as great to them as our joy is to us. Goat climb¬ 
ing the rocks; anaconda crawling through the jungle; 
buffalo plunging across the prairie; crocodile basking in 
tropical sun; seal puffing on the ice; ostrich striding 
across the desert, are so many bundles of joy; they do 
not go moping or melancholy; they are not only half 
supplied; God says they are filled with good. 

The worm squirming through the sod upturned of 
plowshare, and the ants racing up and down the hillock, 
are happy by day and happy by night. Take up a drop 
of water under the microscope, and you find that within 
it there are millions of creatures that swim in a hallelu¬ 
jah of gladness. The sounds in nature that are repul- 


THANKSGIVING DAT. 


160 

sive to our ears are often only utterances of joy—the 
growl, the croak, the hark, the howl. The good God 
made these creatures, thinks of them ever, and will not 
let a plowshare turn up a mole’s nest, or fisherman’s 
hook transfix a worm, until, by eternal decree, its time 
has come. God’s hand feeds all these broods, and shep¬ 
herds all these flocks, and tends all these herds. He 
sweetens the clover-top for the oxen’s taste; and pours 
out crystalline waters, in mossed cups of rock, for the 
hind to drink out of on his way down the crags; and 
pours nectar into the cup of the honeysuckle to refresh 
the humming-bird; and spreads a banquet of a hundred 
fields of buckwheat, and lets the honey-bee put his mouth 
to any cup of all the banquet; and tells the grasshop¬ 
per to go any where he likes, and gives the flocks of 
heaven the choice of all the grain-fields. The sea ane¬ 
mone, half animal, half flower, clinging to the rock in 
mid-Qcean, with its tentacles spread to catch its food, has 
the Owner of the universe to provide for it. We are 
repulsed at the hideousness of the elephant, but God, for 
the comfort and convenience of the monster, puts forty 
thousand distinct muscles in its proboscis. 

I go down on the barren sea-shore and say, “ Ho ani¬ 
mal can live in this place of desolationbut all through 
the sands are myriads of little insects that leap with hap¬ 
py life. I go down by the marsh and say, “In this damp 
place, and in these loathsome pools of stagnant water, 
there will be the quietness of deathbut, lo! I see the 
turtles on the rotten log sunning themselves, and hear 
the bogs quake with multitudinous life. When the un¬ 
fledged robins are hungry, God shows the old robin 
where she can get food to put into their open mouths. 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


161 


Winter is not allowed to come until the ants have gran- 
aried their harvest, and the squirrels have filled their cel¬ 
lar with nuts. God shows the hungry ichneumon where 
it may find the crocodile’s eggs; and in arctic climes 
there are animals that God so lavishly clothes that they 
can afford to walk through snow-storms in the finest sa¬ 
ble, and ermine, and chinchilla, and no sooner is one set 
of furs w T orn out than God gives them a new one. He 
helps the spider in its architecture of its gossamer bridge, 
and takes care of the color of the butterfly’s wing, and 
tinges the cochineal, and helps the moth out of the chry¬ 
salis. The animal creation also has its army and navy. 
The most insignificant has its means of defense: the 
wasp its sting; the reptile its tooth; the bear its paw; 
the dog its muzzle; the elephant its tusk; the fish its 
scale; the bird its swift wing; the reindeer its antlers; 
the roe its fleet foot. We are repelled at the thought of 
sting, and tusk, and hoof, but God’s goodness provides 
them for the defense of the animal’s rights. 

Yea, God in the Bible announces his care for these 
orders of creation. He says that he has heaved mp for¬ 
tifications for their defense—Psalm civ., 18: “The high 
hills are a refuge for the wild goats , and the rocks for 
the conies .” He watches the bird’s nest—Psalm civ., 17: 
“As for the stork , the fir-trees are her house .” He sees 
that the cattle have enough grass—Psalm civ., 14: “He 
causeth the grass to grow for the cattle .” He sees to it 
that the cows, and sheep, and horses have enough to 
drink—Psalm civ., 10,11: “He sendeth the springs into 
the valleys, which run among the hills / they give drink 
to every beast of the field; the wild asses quench their 
thirst .” 


162 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


Amid tlie thunders of Sinai God uttered the rights of 
cattle, and said that they should have a Sabbath. “Thou 
shalt not do any work, thou , nor thy cattleP He de¬ 
clared with infinite emphasis that the ox on the thresh¬ 
ing-floor should have the privilege of eating some of the 
grain as he trod it out, and muzzling was forbidden. If 
young birds were taken from the nest for food, the de¬ 
spoiler’s life depended on the mother going free. God 
would not let the mother-bird suffer in one day the loss 
of her young and her own liberty. And He who re¬ 
garded in olden time the conduct of man toward the 
brutes, to-day looks down from heaven and is interested 
in every minnow that swims the stream, and every rook 
that cleaves the air, and every herd that bleats, or neighs, 
or lows in the pasture. 

Why did God make all these, and why make them so 
happy ? How account for all this singing, and dancing, 
and frisking amid the irrational creation f Why this 
heaven for the animalcule in a dew-drop ? Why for the 
condor a throne on Chimborazo? Why the glitter of 
the phosphorus in the ship’s wake on the sea, which is 
said to be only the frolic of millions of insects? Why 
the perpetual chanting of so many voices from the irra¬ 
tional creation in earth, and air, and ocean—beasts, and 
all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl, permitted to 
join in the praise that goes up from seraph and archan¬ 
gel ? Only one solution, one explanation, one answer— 
God is good. “The earth is full of the goodness of the 
Lord? 

I take a step higher, and notice the adaptation of the 
world to the comfort and happiness of man. The sixth 
day of greation had arrived. The palace of the world 


THANKSGIVING DAY. 


163 


was made, but there was no king to live in it. Leviathan 
ruled the deep; the eagle the air; the lion ihe field; 
but where was the sceptre which should rule all % A 
new style of being was created. Heaven and earth were 
represented in his nature. His body from the earth be¬ 
neath ; his soul from the heaven above. The one re¬ 
minding him of his origin, the other speaking of his des¬ 
tiny—himself the connecting link between the animal 
creation and angelic intelligence. In him a strange 
commingling of the temporal and eternal, the finite and 
the infinite, dust and glory. The earth for his floor, and 
heaven for his roof; God for his Father; eternity for his 
lifetime. 

The Christian anatomist, gazing upon the conforma¬ 
tion of the human body, exclaims, “ Fearfully and won¬ 
derfully made.” Ho embroidery so elaborate, no gauze 
so delicate, no color so exquisite, no mechanism so grace¬ 
ful, no handiwork so divine. So quietly and mysterious¬ 
ly does the human body perform its functions, that it 
was not until five thousand years after the creation of 
the race that the circulation of the blood was discover¬ 
ed; and though anatomists of all countries and ages 
have been so long exploring this castle of life, they have 
only begun to understand it. 

Volumes have been written of the hand. Wondrous 
instrument! With it we give friendly recognition, and 
grasp the sword, and climb the rock, and write, and 
carve, and build. It constructed the Pyramids, and 
hoisted the Parthenon. It made the harp, and then 
struck out of it all the world’s minstrelsy. In it the 
white marble of Pentelicon mines dreamed itself away 
into immortal sculpture. It reins in the swift engine; 


164 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


it holds the steamer to its path in the sea; it snatches 
the fire from heaven; it feels the pulse of the sick child 
with its delicate touch, and makes the nations quake 
with its stupendous achievements. What power brought 
down the forests, and made the marshes blossom, and 
burdened the earth with all the cities that thunder on 
with enterprise and power ? Four fingers and a thumb. 
A hundred million dollars would not purchase for you 
a machine as exquisite and wonderful as your own hand. 
Mighty hand! In all its bones, and muscles, and joints, 
I learn that God is good. 

Behold the eye, which, in its Daguerrean gallery, in an 
instant catches the mountain and the sea. This perpet¬ 
ual telegraphing of the nerves; these joints, that are the 
only hinges that do not wear out; these bones and mus¬ 
cles of the body, with fourteen thousand different adap¬ 
tations ; these one hundred thousand glands; these two 
hundred million pores; this mysterious heart, contract¬ 
ing four thousand times every hour—two hundred and 
fifty pounds of blood rushing through it every sixty sec¬ 
onds ; this chemical process of digestion; this laborato¬ 
ry, beyond the understanding of the most skillful philos¬ 
ophy ; this furnace, whose heat is kept up from cradle 
to grave; this factory of life, whose wheels, and spin¬ 
dles, and bands are God-directed; this human voice, ca¬ 
pable, as has been estimated, of producing seventeen tril¬ 
lions, five hundred and ninety-two billions, one hundred 
and eighty-six millions, forty-four thousand four hundred 
and fifteen sounds. If we could realize the wonders of 
our physical organization, we would be hypochondriacs, 
fearing every moment that some part of the machine 
would break down. But there are men here who have 


THANKSGIVING DA Y, 


165 


lived through seventy years, and not a nerve has ceased 
to thrill, or a muscle to contract, or a lung to breathe, or 
a hand to manipulate. 

1 take a step higher, and look at man’s mental consti¬ 
tution. 

Behold the lavish benevolence of God in powers of 
perception, or the faculty you have of transporting this 
outside world into your own mind—gathering into your 
brain the majesty of the storm, and the splendors of the 
day-dawn, and lifting into your mind the ocean as easily 
as you might put a glass of water to your lips. 

Wgfch the law of association , or the mysterious link¬ 
ing together of all you ever thought, or knew, or felt, 
and then giving you the power to take hold of the clew¬ 
line, and draw through your mind the long train with 
indescribable velocity—one thought starting up a hun¬ 
dred, and this again a thousand—as the chirp of one 
bird sometimes wake a whole forest of voices, or the 
thrum of one string will rouse an orchestra. 

Watch your 7nemory — that sheaf-binder that goest 
forth to gather the harvest of the past, and bring it into* 
the present. Your power and velocity of thought— 
thought of the swift wing and the lightning foot; 
thought that outspeeds the star, and circles through the 
heavens, and weighs worlds, and, from poising amid 
wheeling constellations, comes down to count the blos¬ 
soms in a tuft of mignonette, then starts again to try the 
fathoming of the bottomless, and the scaling of the in¬ 
surmountable, to be swallowed up in the incomprehensi¬ 
ble, and lost in God! 

In reason and understanding, man is alone. The ox 
surpasses him in strength, the antelope in speed, the 


166 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


hound in keenness of nostril, the eagle in far-reaching 
sight, the rabbit in quickness of hearing, the honey-bee 
in delicacy of tongue, the spider in fineness of touch. 
Man’s power, therefore, consisteth not in what he can 
lift, or how fast he can run, or how strong a wrestler he 
can throw—for in these respects the ox, the ostrich, and 
the hyena are his superior—but by his reason he comes 
forth to rule all: through his ingenious contrivance to 
outrun, ojitlift, outwrestle, outsee, outhear, outdo. At 
his all-conquering decree, the forest that had stood for 
ages steps aside to let him build his cabin and cultivate 
his farm. The sea which raved and foamed upon the 
race has become a crystal pathway for commerce to 
march on. The thunder-cloud that slept lazily above 
the mountain is made to come down and carry mail- 
bags. Man, dissatisfied with his slowness of advance¬ 
ment, shouted to the Water and the Fire, “ Come and 
lift!” “ Come and draw !” “ Come and help!” And 

they answered, “Ay, ay, we come;” and they joined 
hands—the fire and the water—and the shuttles fly, and 
the rail-train rattles on, and the steam-ship comes cough¬ 
ing, panting, flaming across the deep. He elevates the 
telescope to the heavens, and, as easily as through the 
stethoscope the physician hears the movement of the 
lung, the astronomer catches the pulsation of distant sys¬ 
tems of worlds throbbing with life. He takes the micro¬ 
scope, and discovers that there are hundreds of thousands 
of animalcula living, moving, working, dying within a 
circle that could be covered with the point of a pin—an¬ 
imals to which a rain-drop would be an ocean, a rose- 
leaf a hemisphere, and the flash of a fire-fly lasting enough 
to give them light to several generations. 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


167 


I take a step higher, and look at man’s moral nature. 
Made in the image of God. Yast capacity for enjoy¬ 
ment ; capable at first of eternal joy, and, though now dis¬ 
ordered, still, through the recuperative force' of heavenly 
grace, able to mount up to more than its original felici¬ 
ty : faculties that,may blossom and bear fruit inexhaust¬ 
ibly. Immortality written upon every capacity: a soul 
destined to range in unlimited spheres of activity long 
after the world has put on ashes, and the solar system 
shall have snapped its axle, and the stars that, in their 
courses, fought against Sisera, shall have been slain, and 
buried amid the tolling thunders of the last day. 

You see that God has adapted every thing to our com¬ 
fort and advantage. Pleasant things for the palate; 
music for the ear; beauty for the eye; aroma for the 
’nostril; kindred for our affections; poetry for our taste; 
religion for our soul. We are put in a garden, and told 
that from all the trees we may eat except here and there 
one. He gives the sun to shine on us, and the waters to 
refresh us, and food to strengthen us; and the herbs yield 
medicine when we are sick, and the forests lumber when 
we would build a house, or cross the water in a ship. 
The rocks are transported for our foundation; and met¬ 
als upturned for our currency; and wild beasts must 
give us covering; and the mountains must be tunneled 
to let us pass; and the fish of the sea come up in our 
net; and the birds of the air drop at the flash of our 
guns; and the cattle on a thousand hills come down to 
give us meat. For us the peach-orchards bend down 
their fruit, and the vineyards their purple clusters. To 
feed and refresh our intellect, ten thousand wonders in 
nature and providence—wonders of mind and body, won- 


168 


THANKSGIVING DAY. 


ders of earth, and air, and deep, analogies and antithe¬ 
ses ; all colors and sounds; lyrics in the air; idyls in the 
field; conflagrations in the sunset; robes of mist on the 
mountains; and the “Grand March” of God in the storm. 

But for the soul still higher adaptation : a fountain in 
which it may w T ash; a ladder by which it may climb; a 
song of endless triumph that it.may sing; a crown of 
unfading light that it may wear. Christ came to save 
it—came with a cross on his back; came with spikes in 
his feet; came when no one else would come, to do a 
work which no one else would do. See how suited to 
man’s condition is what God has done for him ! Man is 
a sinner; here his pardon. He has lost God’s image; 
Christ retraces it. He is helpless; Almighty grace is 
proffered. He is a lost wanderer; Jesus brings him 
home. He is blind; and at one touch of Him who cured' 
Bartimeus, eternal glories stream into his soul. Jesus, I 
sing thy grace! Cure of worst disease! Hammer to 
smite off heaviest chain ! Light for thickest darkness! 
Grace divine! Devils scoff at it, and men reject it, but 
heaven celebrates it! 

But I must stop this range of thought, for our Chief 
Executive asks that to-day we chiefly celebrate the mer¬ 
cies of the past year. How, my soul, to the altar of in¬ 
cense. Come, all ye people! Great High-priest, kindle 
the coals ! Let the cloud fill the temple ! 

I wish you good cheer for the national health. Pes¬ 
tilence, that in other years has come to drive out its 
thousand hearses to Greenwood and Laurel Hill, has not 
visited our nation, or has touched only one or two of the 
Southern ports. It is a glorious thing to be well. How 
strange that we should keep our health when one breath 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


169 


from a marsh, or the sting of an insect, or the slipping 
of a foot, or the falling of a tree-branch might fatally 
assault our life! Regularly the lungs work, and their 
motion seems to be a spirit within us panting after its 
immortality. Our sight fails not, though the air is so 
full of objects which by one touch could break out the 
soul’s window. What ship, after a year’s tossing on the 
sea, could come in with so little damage as ourselves, 
though we arrive after a year’s voyage to-day ? 

I wish you good cheer for the national harvest. Reap¬ 
ing-machines never swathed thicker rye, and corn-husk- 
er’s peg never ripped out fuller ear, and mow-poles never 
bent down under sweeter hay, and windmill’s hopper 
never shook out larger wheat. Long trains of white cov¬ 
ered wagons have brought the wealth down to the great 
thoroughfares. The garners are full, the store-houses are 
overcrowded, the canals are blocked with freights press¬ 
ing down to the markets. The cars rumble all through 
the darkness, and whistle up the flagmen at dead of night 
to let the Western harvests come down to feed the mouths 
of the great cities. A race of kings has taken possession 
of this land—King Cotton, King Corn, King Wheat, King 
Grass, King Coal. Our nets bring up supplies from the 
cod, salmon, and mackerel fisheries; the whaler’s har¬ 
poon was never more skillfully flung. 

I wish you good cheer for civil and religious liberty. 
Ko official spy watches our entrance here, nor does an 
armed soldier interfere with the honest utterance of truth. 
We stand here to-day with our arms free to work, and 
our tongues free to speak. This Bible — it is all un¬ 
clasped. This pulpit—there is no chain round about it. 
There is no snapping of musketry in the street. Blessed 


170 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


be God that to-day we are free men, with the prospect 
and determination of always being free. No established 
religion: Jew and Gentile—Arminian and Calvinist— 
Trinitarian and Unitarian—Protestant and Roman Cath¬ 
olic—on the same footing. If persecution should come 
against the most unpopular of all the sects, I believe that 
all other denominations would band together, and arm 
themselves, and hearts would be stout, and blood would 
be free, and the right of men to worship God according 
to the dictates of their consciences would be contested 
at the point of the bayonet, and with blood flowing up 
to the bits of the horses’ bridles. 

I wish you good cheer for our condition as a Church. 
We stand to-day at a point of prosperity that we never 
expected to reach. Our experiment of a free Church 
has been successful. ^ Considering the fact that a little 
more than two years ago this Church was as near extinc¬ 
tion as a Church ever goes without absolutely dying, and 
considering the fact that we have been in this Taber¬ 
nacle only a little more than one year, we ought to offer 
a thanksgiving to God, long, and loud, and deep, for his 
wonderful works in our behalf. The American Church 
has rejoiced with us in the success of our experiment, 
and our enemies have been confounded. Let us render 
thanksgiving to God that he has given this Church a mis¬ 
sion to perform, and that the thousands of people who 
worship with us on the Sabbath are but a handful com¬ 
pared with that great multitude of perhaps hundreds of 
thousands of souls whom, through the printing-press, we 
are now reaching every week in this country, and in En¬ 
gland and Scotland. I confess that I am appalled on Sab¬ 
bath days when I think of the work that, as a Church, 


THANKSGIVING DA Y. 


171 


we are called to do. Great is the responsibility, oh men 
and women of God, and great the condemnation if, with 
such wonderful opportunity for usefulness, we prove rec¬ 
reant. 

Let us thank God that during the year we have been 
permitted to inaugurate “ the Tabernacle Free College 
for training Christian men and women for practical 
work” an institution that has kindled the sympathies of 
tens of thousands of people all over this land, and which, 
if successful, will be of more value than the building of 
many churches. A very large number of men and wom¬ 
en have enrolled themselves already as students. May 
the Lord bless and encourage all who are connected 
with it! 

Praise ye the Lord ! Let every thing that hath breath 
praise the Lord ! To-day let the people come out from 
their store-houses and offices, from Lowell factories, and 
off from "Western prairies, and up from Pennsylvania 
coal-mines, and out from Oregon forests, and in from 
the whale-ships of New London and Cape Ann, and 
wherever God’s light shines, and God’s rain descends, 
and God’s mercy broods, let the thanksgiving arise! 


172 


LINES OF CIBCUMVALLA TION. 


LINES OF CIRCUMVALLATION. 

“A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last.”— 
Genesis xlix., 19. 

M Y text speaks of a tribe who were often discom¬ 
fited in battle, yet were at last victorious. But 
the words may be used as graphically descriptive of the 
defeat of Christ, to be followed by his successes. 

When Christ’s chin dropped upon his breast in death, 
the world shouted in triumph. Driven as he has been 
from the heart, from the social circle, from literature, 
from places of influence, the world gazes now upon what 
seems to be a vanquished Redeemer. But he shall yet 
rally his forces, and, though now overcome by other 
troops, he shall overcome at the last. 

When a city is about to be besieged, lines of circum- 
vallation are run out; in half circles the fortifications 
sweep around: the first line fifteen miles out; the sec¬ 
ond, ten miles; the next, five; the next, one mile out. 
The attacking host first takes the outworks, then a line 
nearer, coming on up until the embankment nearest the 
city is captured. 

Now, the human heart is defending itself against 
Christ , and it has run out four or five lines of cir cum- 
vallation , and they must one by one be taken,, so that 
Christ may overcome at the last and the heart surrender. 
You know how men fight when they contend in battle 
for their wives and children. There are lightnings in 


LINES OF CIRCUMVALLATION. 


173 


tlieir eye, and every finger is a spear, and their shout is 
like the voice of a whirlwind. You know how men 
fight when they contend for their country. The men of 
O’Brien, sick and wounded in the hospitals, as the battle 
came on, asked that they might be brought out, that 
stakes might be driven in the ground, and that they 
might be lashed fast to the stakes, so that with their one 
free arm they might contend for their country. And so 
it was done; though unable to stand alone, they were 
lashed fast to stakes, and fought to the death. 

But the fiercest battle ever fought is between the un¬ 
regenerated heart and Christ. Before I get through with 
the sermon I will illustrate my meaning. 

Forward, ye troops of God, and take the line of for¬ 
tification farthest out, which is —prejudice against min¬ 
isters and churches. There are men who, for various 
reasons, do not believe in these things, and from that 
outward intrenchment contend against Christ. My re¬ 
ply to this is, seek out a church and a minister that you 
do like. That is the religious advantage that men have 
in large towns that they have nowhere else; they may 
have their pick—high churches and low churches, rich 
churches and poor churches, aristocratic churches and 
democratic churches, pew-renting churches and free 
churches, Calvinistic churches and Arminian churches, 
ministers white and black, learned and ignorant, fantas¬ 
tic and plain, old and young, manuscript-reading. and 
extemporaneous, some wearing fine gowns and others a 
very poor coat, ministers argumentative or figurative, 
ministers statistical or poetical. 

Look over the whole list of churches and clergymen, 
and I think that you will find one good enough for your. 


174 


LINES OF CIMCUMVALLATION 


soul. Keep, if you will, your prejudice against all other 
institutions, but love that one. To some of you I com¬ 
mend the Episcopalian liturgy as the best; to others, the 
informal worship of the Methodists. Some of you had 
better be sprinkled, and others had better go down to be 
dipped in the flood. To some of you I commend a 
church where the music is led by a precentor, and all the 
people join in the singing; to others, a church where 
four persons stand in the loft and conduct the music, and 
during the dull passages in prayer and sermon write sen¬ 
timental notes or eat philopenas. Amid all the denom¬ 
inations there must be one place where your soul will be 
blessed. This very church, to some of you, shall be the 
way to heaven, and through this one break in the long 
fortification of your prejudice I press through with the 
battle-cry of the Cross, feeling that, though these preju¬ 
dices have been the troop that overcame Christ , he shall 
overcome at the last! 

Forward, ye troops of God, to the next intrenchment! 
It is a circumvallation of social influences. There are 
hundreds of people here to-night whose surroundings in 
the world are adverse to the Christian religion. The 
first step that yonder man makes toward heaven will call 
forth a volley of criticism and caricature. Many of their 
friends in the world would as soon be shot as be seen on 
their knees praying. The whole atmosphere is as uncon¬ 
genial to religion as a northern clime is to pine-apples 
and bananas. If that } 7 oung man should become a Chris¬ 
tian and go back to the store, they would accost him 
with, “ John, how is your soul ? Come, now, give us a 
prayer. Suppose you will have nothing to do with such 
sinners as we.‘ What is. the news from heaven ? What! 


LINES OF CIIiCUMVALLATION. 


175 


getting red in the face ? Not mad, I hope ? Christians 
ought not to get mad. What a saint you are! I sup¬ 
pose you are almost ready for translation!” Sunday 
nights your friends play cards, drink wine, and smoke 
cigars, and in all the round of your associates the name 
of God is never used save in profanity. 

The long, high, mighty breastwork of social influ¬ 
ences—how shall grace ever take it ? For which one of 
these ungodly friends will you send when you are dy¬ 
ing ? They could sit up with you, and pour out the med¬ 
icines, and shake up your hot pillow, but could they ad¬ 
minister any comfort for the soul ? As the waves of the 
Jordan begin to lick your feet, will they be able to say 
any thing to strengthen ? If, in some awful spasm of 
physical suffering, you should ask them to pray, do you 
think they would know how to do it ? Will they crowd 
the room, and keep out the last enemy ? What single 
thing can they do for you when heart and flesh shall 
fail? When the trumpet sounds, do you want to rise 
with them in their resurrection? Do you think they 
will put on the coronations of heaven ? If not, do not 
let them hinder you now. If they do nothing for you 
in death, judgment, or eternity, it is high time you look¬ 
ed for help in some other direction. Howland Hill, one 
night, on his way to church, found two men at a lamp- 
post, talking. One said to the other,“Let us go down 
to-night and hear old Howland Hill, and we will have 
some fine sport.” Howland Hill took his place in the 
pulpit, and the two men he had heard talking on the 
street came into the gallery and sat quite near to the pul¬ 
pit. Howland Hill went on to describe the horrors of a 
sinner’s death-bed, and then turned around to these men 


176 


LINES OF GIR V UMVALLA TION. 


in the gallery and said, “ That will be fine sport for you.” 
He then spoke of the judgment day—the day for which 
all others were made—of how some would come up re¬ 
joicing, and others wailing; and then turned around to 
these men in the gallery and said, “ That will be fine 
sport for you.” He then spoke of the long eternity, 
ages on ages rolling—the eternity of the destroyed—no 
light, no promise, no hope; then turned to the men in 
the gallery and said, “ That will be fine sport for you.” 
The two had been leading each other on in sin. Where 
one went, the other went. If your most intimate friend 
goes to heaven, you will probably go to heaven; if your 
most intimate friend goes to hell, you probably will go 
to hell. 

Evil companionship has destroyed innumerable men. 
Through this high battlement no human force can break, 
but oh! that the Lord Jesus might storm it to-night. 
Give up your scoffing associates, or give up God and 
heaven. These friends may get you into perdition, but 
they can not get you out. Christ never entered a man’s 
soul who was not willing to give up unsanctified com¬ 
panionship. If five hundred of you are unsaved, it will 
be because of your wrong surroundings. The artillery 
of God comes thundering on: will you surrender? This 
second fortress must be taken. Lord Jesus, now scale 
the w T all! He mounts the steep! He who has been so 
often overcome has overcome at the last! 

Forward, ye troops of God, to the third line of in- 
trenchment, namely, the intellectual difficulties about 
religion . A hundred perplexities about the parables; a 
hundred questions about the ninth chapter of Romans; 
passage set against passage in seeming contradiction. 


LINES OF CIRCUMVALLA TION. 


177 


You pile up a battlement of Colenso on the Pentateuch , 
and Tom Paine’s Age of Reason, and Renan’s Life of 
Christ; and some parts of the wall are so high that it 
would be folly to attempt to take them. But there is a 
hole in the wall of fortification, and through that hole in 
the wall I put my right hand, and take your own, and 
say, “ My brother, do you want to be saved ?” And you 
say “Yes.” “Well; Jesus Christ came to seek and to 
save that which is lost. Wilt thou let him in —the 
bruised One of the Cross? He will take away all thy 
sins and all thy sorrows. In one half hour he will give 
thee more peace than thou hast had in all the twenty 
years of thy questioning and doubting!” Let the great 
guns of Colenso and Renan blaze away. Christ comes 
not to the gate of your head, but to the door of your 
heart, and, tapping gently against it, he says, “ Behold, I 
stand at the door and knock. Whosoever will open to 
me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with 
me.” 

Skepticism seems to do quite w T ell in prosperity, but 
it fails in adversity. A celebrated infidel, on shipboard, 
in the sunshine, caricatured the Christian religion, and 
scoffed at its professors. But the sea arose, and the 
waves dashed across the hurricane-deck, and the man 
cried out, “O my God, what shall I do? what shall I 
do?” A father went down to see his dying son in a 
Southern hospital during the war. Finding that the 
boy was dying, he went to the chaplain and said, “ I 
wish you would go and see my boy, and get him pre¬ 
pared for the future.” “Why,” said the chaplain, “I 
thought you did not believe in religion!” “Well,” 
said he, “ I don’t, but his mother does; and I would a 
112 


178 


LINES OF CIU C UMVALLA TION. 


great deal rather the boy would follow his mother. Go 
and get him prepared.” Skepticism does tolerably well 
to live by, but it is a poor thing to die by. The fortifi¬ 
cation of your soul this hour gives way; and the Christ, 
who seemed to have been overcome by argument, and 
by profound questions, and elaborate analysis, now, by 
the force of love, overcomes at the last! 

Forward, ye troops of light, to the next circumvalla- 
tion of the heart, namely, pernicious habit . I do not 
believe that it is necessary to be a teetotaler in order to 
be a Christian (although I wish all were teetotalers), but 
I do say that a man who is excessive in the use of strong 
drink can not love Christ. He will not dispute with you 
the supremacy of the bottle. The appetite is to-day the 
mightiest barrier against God. There are men who 
would rather brave eternity, unpardoned, than give up 
their bondage. They have been throwing up this em¬ 
bankment of evil habit for five, ten, or twenty years, un¬ 
til it is very high and very great. Temperance societies, 
grand as they are, will not capture it. Christ, the Son of 
God, alone can take the fortification. This night he 
beats mightily against it. Some years ago, when the 
cholera was raging in Hew Orleans, a steamer near 
nightfall put out from the city, laden with passengers es¬ 
caping from the pestilence. The steamer had been but 
a little while out when the engineer fell at his post with 
cholera. The captain, in despair, went up and down 
among the passengers, asking if there were any one 
there who could act as engineer. A man stepped out, 
and said that he was an engineer, and could take the po¬ 
sition. In the night the captain was awakened by a vio¬ 
lent motion of the steamer, and he knew that there was 


LINES OF ClliCUMVALLA TION. 


179 


great peril ahead. He went up, and found that the en¬ 
gineer was a maniac; that he had fastened down the 
safety-valves; and he told the captain that he was the 
emissary of Satan, commissioned to drive that steamer 
to hell. By some strategy, the man was got down in 
time to save the steamer. There are men engineered by 
maniac passions, sworn to drive them to temporal and 
everlasting destruction. Every part of their nature trem¬ 
bles under the high pressure. Nothing but the grace of 
Almighty God can bring down those passions, and chain 
them. A little while longer in this course, and all is lost. 

Whatever be the form of evil habit, Christ is able 
fully and finally to deliver that man. Though he be 
eaten up with dissipations; though he be sunk to the 
lowest depths of shame; though every physical, mental, 
and spiritual force be crippled, Christ will make him a 
whole man, and lift him to usefulness and respectability 
here, and to glory hereafter. 

I have heard men spoken of as so far gone that they 
could not be rescued. I denounce the horrible infidel¬ 
ity. The Lord’s arm is omnipotent, and the worst wretch 
that ever crawled into the ditch would no more puzzle 
or confound God than the case of the most elegant and 
polished sinner that ever came to him. 

Lay hold of that Almighty arm, oh ye dying captives! 
Notwithstanding all your past misdoings, there is no need 
that you miss heaven; there is grace enough to save * 
every one of you; not merely letting you escape by the 
skin of your teeth, but giving you an abundant entrance 
into the kingdom of our Lord. The feet of God’s host 
are already at the foot of the wall. They come on with 
the blood-stained flag of the cross. They mount the 


180 


LINES OF Clli C UMVALLA TION. 


steep. Under their drawn sword tliy evil passions go 
down. Where sin abounded, grace does much more 
abound. Victory over thy sin! Victory through the 
Lord Jesus Christ! Through many a long year thy ap¬ 
petites overcame him, but he has overcome at the last! 

Forward, ye troops of light, to the last and the might¬ 
iest line of fortification— thejpride and the rebellion of 
the natural heart. This intrenchment must be taken, or 
all the rest of the contest is lost. This is the crisis of 
the battle. 

Sometimes the besieging army, finding the intrench- 
ments high and strong, swing around in the rear, escape 
the fortifications, and flank the city, taking it with but 
little resistance. So God’s grace, leaving all the long 
embankments of prejudice, and social influence, and in¬ 
tellectual perplexities, and bad habits, comes around and 
falls upon the heart first, and that captured by a flank 
movement, all the fortifications surrender. Your heart 
taken for Christ, your bad habits fall, your mental diffi¬ 
culties fly, and in one struggle your entire nature is re¬ 
deemed. To-night God’s grace goes around all the other 
embankments, and for the present lets them stand, and 
with its stout fist pounds against your heart’s castle. 
You say that the locks have been so long fast, and the 
bolts are so rusty, and the hinges so unused that you 
can not open the door. Then stand back for a moment, 
* while, taking the Cross for a battering-ram,We try with 
it to drive down the door and let Christ come in. 

Oh! yours is a sinning heart, and Christ alone can 
cleanse it. Yours is a proud heart, and Christ alone can 
humble it. Yours is a rebellious heart, and Christ alone 
can subdue it. 


LINES OF QIRCUMVALLATION. 


181 


The Captain of our salvation calls up before your soul 
all his troops of mercy and grace. Hold out no longer 
against the forces that would take thee in the name of 
thy King. By thy hard-heartedness, and rebellion, and 
sin, .thou hast ten thousand times overcome thy best 
Friend, but shall it not be told in heaven to-night that 
he has overcome at the last f 

Throw open every door, and ward, and closet of your 
heart to the conquering Jesus. Be not like Hiram, the 
king, who contributed toward the building of the Temple 
of God at Jerusalem, while at the same time he was help¬ 
ing to construct the temples of Hercules. Your heart 
swept clean of the last idol, let Christ have full posses¬ 
sion. Charge upon this most important fortress, oh ye 
troops of God ; Let the Holy Spirit push against it with 
heaviest warnings! Let Sinai open its cannonade of 
thunders! Beat against the door with shouts of heaven 
and groans of hell! Let all the memories of a Christian 
father’s prayer and a pious mother’s love put their shoul¬ 
ders against the panel! Back with the door! It must 
go in! Open, oh long-closed heart! It must finally sur¬ 
render or fall under the ten thousand booming batteries 
of judgment and eternity. 

But the day of thy grace is almost past. The sun is 
dipping below the mountains. The fiery sky foretells 
the storm. The chill in the air prophesies a night of 
blackness and darkness. What you do you had better 
do quickly. 

A gentleman, wandering along on the beach of Scot¬ 
land, where the high rocks came near the sea, was un¬ 
mindful of the fact that the tide was rising, which would 
cut off his retreat. A man on the top of the rocks shout- 


182 


LINES OF CIRCUMYALLATION. 


ed “ Hallo! the tide is rising, and this is the last place 
through which you can make your escape; you had bet¬ 
ter climb up on to the rocks.” The man laughed at the 
warning and went on. After a while he thought it was 
time to return; he came back and found retreat cut off. 
He tried to scale the rocks; he clambered half way up 
—could get no farther. The wave came to his feet— 
came to his waist—came to his chin, and with a wild 
shriek for help he perished. 

The tides of eternity are rising. Those only will be 
saved who get on to the Hock of Ages; yet men saunter 
along in their sin and play in the sand. We come out 
and shout, “ Hallo! hallo! the tide is rising.” They 
laugh at our excitement, and say that there is no danger. 
After a while they resolve to return, but it is too late. 
The waters of eternal destruction gather about their 
feet; they try to climb, but get no farther than the foot 
of the rock, and, with eyes rolling in horror, and hands 
flung up, and a shriek of despair that rolls among the 
mountains of death with long-reverberating echo, they 
drop forever. 

Lord God, keep us from such a catastrophe! 

A surgeon, wounded at Gettysburg, told me that he 
lay helpless upon the heights, looking down upon the 
battle. He saw the fate of the nation wavering back¬ 
ward and forward—now one army seeming to conquer, 
now the other. The scene was grand and overwhelming. 

I stand on the heights of Zion to-night, and I see your 
eternal destinies being decided in battle. Some of you 
have charged upon Christ with all the sins and preju¬ 
dices of your lifetime. He is falling back and falling 
back; you have wounded him in the brow; you have 


LINES OF CIRCUMVALLA TION. 


183 


wounded him in the hands; you have wounded him in 
the feet; you have wounded him in the heart. . He falls 
in his own blood, -while your iniquities stamp upon him 
# and cry,“We will not have this man to reign over us!” 
In the words of the text, you have overcome him. But 
now I see him rising up. In the strength of his almighty 
love he comes at you. Armed by memories of Beth¬ 
lehem and Golgotha, he passes on toward you. With 
weapons of sacrifice and invitations of glory he attacks 
thy soul, and it falls back and falls back until, able to 
retreat no longer, it throws out its arms to receive him, 
and all the spectators on the sky battlements clap their 
hands and rejoice that Jesus , who was before overcome 
by a troop , has overcome at the last ! 


184 


LAST THINGS. 


LAST THINGS. 

“It is the last time.”—1 John ii., 18. 

J OHN is here enforcing certain truths by the consid¬ 
eration that the people to whom he writes have come 
to the closing dispensation of the world, and says, “It is 
the last time .” 

I am standing in the last service of the last Sabbath 
of the last month of the year. Four more ringings of 
the city clock, and the year, with all its joys, griefs, and 
achievements, will be done. It is the last time, and so I 
shall speak to you of last things. 

I. My hearers are coming nearer their last business 
day. You move in routine. You rise at seven o’clock, 
breakfast, start for the store, enter your counting-room, 
read your letters, and give consequent orders. You look 
at the prices current, and talk with customers. You sell 
and you buy. You run over to the bank or insurance 
company. You come back and look into the cash-draw¬ 
er, and see by the book how much money your partner 
has drawn out. You run out to lunch. You come back. 
You drive out the street-peddlers, wdio have razors, or 
apples, or books to sell. At five or six o’clock you start 
for Fulton, Wall, or South Ferry. That order goes on 
day after day, and year after year. Yet a day is not far 
distant which may seem to be like all the others, but 
shall be entirely different. It will have two twilights— 
that of the morning and that of the evening. There will 


LAST THINGS. 


185 


be a meridian. You will go to business—you will come 
back. Yet it will be, in the calendar of eternity, as 
marked a day as though it had no twilight; as though 
every hour the sky rang a fire-bell; as though faces * 
looked out from all the clouds ; as though the wind had 
voices; as though every hour an angel shot past your 
store door. It will be your last business day. Unknown 
and unexpected by yourself, you will terminate all your 
business engagements. You will shut your cash-drawer, 
will close your portfolio, will slam shut the money-safe, 
will take your hat and go out. Nothing that ever hap¬ 
pens in the store can take you back again. A burglar 
might blow open the safe; you would not go in to exam¬ 
ine. A fire might consume half the goods; you would 
not see the damage. Gold might go up to 150, or drop 
to 105; it would not*disturb you. After ten, twenty, or 
thirty years being seen in business places, or the ex¬ 
change, or at the broker’s, you will not appear. Men will 
ask about you, and say, “ Where is so-and-so ?” and your 
friend will say, “ Have you not heard the news ?” and 
will take a paper from his pocket, and point to your 
name on the death-list. If things are wrong, they will 
always stay wrong. No chance of correcting a false en¬ 
try, or repairing the loss done a customer by a dishonest 
sample, or handing back the five dollars overpaid you by 
the cashier at the bank, or apologizing for the imposition 
you inflicted upon one of your clerks. The seal has been 
set to all your business life. Good-by to the store! 
Good-by to the stock exchange! Good-by to all your 
business friends! Good-by to New York! It is the last 
time ! 

You who have been in business for twenty-five years 


186 


LAST THINGS . 


in New York, to-morrow, as you walk down the street to 
your store, see how all the signs on the store doors are 
changed. The names are all different from what they 
were when you started in business; or, if they are the 
same, it is because the boys of the family have found it 
an advantage to keep the name of the father on the sign. 
Quietly, unobservedly, yet inevitably, most of your con¬ 
temporaries came to their last time . 

II. I remark that men are coming nearer to their last 
sinful amusement . A dissipated life soon stops. The 
machinery of life is so delicate that it will not endure 
much trifling. As the herdsman throws a peck of corn 
under the swine’s snout to be crunched and devoured, so 
dissipation is throwing the bodies and souls of men, by 
the scores, into the maw of death. They think they can 
stand night carousal; are as well satisfied to retire at one 
o’clock in the morning as at ten at night; feel as safe in 
drinking wine as water; walk without compunction with 
the unclean. But they will soon be through. The time 
comes when, with flushed countenances, they will turn 
back from the gaming-table, or come reeling from the 
midnight debauch, and, wrapping themselves about with 
sin as a garment, will stagger on, and, striking their foot 
against the corner of their own tombstone, will fall flat 
into hell. 

Look into that door! It is not safe to go farther. 
There they sit—the debauchees flinging the dice; bloats 
emptying the decanters; flaunting daughters of death 
whirling about in the dance. With some of them it is 
the last night on earth. Twist up the gaslights full 
head, for eternal darkness is dropping! Fill the glass 
to the brim, for inextinguishable thirst is about to strike 


LAST THINGS. 


187 


its fangs ! Drink deep and long, and all the hiccough¬ 
ing, jeering, blaspheming crew rise up and click the rim 
of their glasses! and spirits lost, with fiery fingers clutch¬ 
ing the cups, give wild huzza of death, as, all together, 
they break through the rotten and crackling floor into 
the smoking, screaming horrors of the damned; and all 
the demons of darkness clap their hands and shout, “Ha! 
ha! It was their last time /” 

III. Again I remark that men are coming nearer to 
their last Sabbath. The week seems to me like a Bed 
Sea, tossing, tossing; the Sabbath like a path cut through 
it, where we may walk dry shod. God lifting liis hand 
again above the waters, all our cares and annoyances are 
whelmed in the flood. 

Where did you pass your boyhood Sabbaths? You 
sjay in a New-England village. You remember the 
church, and the green in front; and the cry of the swal¬ 
lows in the tower as the tap of the bell scattered them; 
and the quiet grave-yard beside it, some of the stones 
leaning over, and the moss almost covering the letters; 
the long line of horses at the hitching-post; the group 
at the church door; the minister, plain, and earnest, and 
affectionate; the children, with whom you exchanged 
mischievous glances, and the aged men and women, to 
whom you looked up with veneration, though they were 
sometimes asleep at the head of the pew—all of them 
sound asleep now in the shadow of the church that once 
they frequented. With some of you it was the Scotch 
kirk, or the English chapel, or the city church. Some¬ 
how, ever since then you loved Sunday to come. Its 
sunrise seems more golden; its noonday more bright; 
its evening more suggestive; and although you feel, be- 


188 


LAST THINGS . 


fore God, that many of your Sundays have been wasted, 
you still say, “ Sweet Sabbath! Messenger from God ! 
Pillow on which to put the aching head! Day fragrant 
of all sweet memories! How I love thee!” 

If you are forty years of age, two thousand and eighty 
of your Sabbaths are gone. Indeed, the whole flock of 
them is started, and the last of them will soon spread 
wing. It will break from the east. The bells will ring. 
There will be the shuffle of young feet and old on the 
way to church. The baptismal waters will be shed, the 
sacramental wine poured, the evening service will pass, 
the Amen will finish the benediction, the lights will be 
lowered, the gates will jar shut, and the sexton will turn 
the key in the lock. Nothing peculiar in the looks of 
the wall that night, or in the sound of the music. Put 
that will be the ending of your Sabbaths. Can you not 
have one more ? Not one more. It will come for oth¬ 
ers, but not for us. The last hymn. The last sermon. 
The last benediction. The last Sabbath. The last time ! 
This very Sabbath may be your closing day of rest. If 
so, you had better take a good look at all these sacred 
places, and say, “Farewell, pew and pulpit, and all ye 
worshipers! Farewell, song and sermon! I make my 
exit! Farewell, thou Christian Sabbath! To all these 
scenes, where I have rejoiced, and prayed, and wept, 
farewell forever! It is the last time /” 

IY. Again, we come near the last year of our life. 
The world is at least six thousand years old. Sixty 
thousand years may yet come, and the procession may 
seem interminable, but our own closing earthly year is 
not far off. Fifteen hundred and forty-six was a mem¬ 
orable year, because in it Luther died. Eighteen hum 


LAST THINGS . 


189 


dred and fifty-two was a marked year, because in it Lord 
Wellington died. Eighteen hundred and fifty-six was a 
marked year, because in it Hugh Miller died. But there 
is a year near at hand more tremendous to us, and that 
is the year in which we will die. Seventeen .hundred 
and seventy-five was a memorable year, because in it the 
battle of Lexington was fought. Eighteen hundred and 
fifteen was a memorable year, for in it Waterloo was 
fought. Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine was a memo¬ 
rable year, because in it Solferino was fought. But there 
will be a more memorable year to us, and that will be 
the year in which we fight our battle with our last ene¬ 
my. That year will open with the usual Hew Year con¬ 
gratulations. It will revel in the same orchard-blossom¬ 
ing ; it will roar with the same Fourth of July rejoic¬ 
ings ; it will close with the same Christmas festivals; 
and yet it will be unlike all others in the fact that it will 
be our closing year. The spring grass may be cleft of 
the spade to let us down to our resting-place; or, while 
the summer grain is falling to the sickle, we may be har¬ 
vested for another world; or, while the autumnal leaves 
are flying in the November gale, we may fade and fall; 
or the driving sleet may cut the faces of the black-tassel- 
ed horses that pull us out in our last ride. But it will 
be the year in which our body and soul part; the year 
in which for us time ends and eternity begins. All oth¬ 
er years are as nothing. The year in which you 'were 
born, the year in which you were married, the year in 
which you began business for yourself, the year in which 
your father died—all of them are of less importance than 
this last year of your life. 

During the year which expires to-night, in three hours 


190 


LAST THIXGS. 


and twenty-five minutes from this time by that clock, 
how many have gone into the next world ? About five 
million five hundred thousand souls. It was their last 
year. Some of them may have expected it, but the 
great majority of them, if foretold that this would be 
their closing year, would have laughed outright and said, 
“ Is not my arm strong ? Is not my eye clear ? Is not 
my lung sound ? Who can skip, or climb, or lift, or run 
better than I ? The doctor of the ‘ Life Insurance Com¬ 
pany’ pronounced me sound. All my friends congratu¬ 
late me on my healthy appearance. Begone with your 
evil prophecy! I shall see my threescore and ten!” 
Yet those five million five hundred thousand have gone. 
Ko more motion in their heart than if it had never pul¬ 
sated. Yo more brightness in their eye than if it had 
always been blind. The earth sails on—a great hearse 
containing thousands, millions, billions, trillions, quadril¬ 
lions of the dead. But the record of the year is not yet 
made up. In the three hours and twenty minutes that 
remain, at least ten thousand nine hundred spirits will 
swing out of this life. The gate of eternity has opened 
and shut to let in six or seven souls since I began that 
last sentence. I beat the seconds with my hand ! At 
every stroke a spirit flies. There goes one—another— 
and another. It was the last time ! 

What is that winged creature flying through the air ? 
It is the Present Year. It is flying from eternity to eter¬ 
nity. I say, “ Stop, oh flying Year!” It stops not, but 
cries as it passes, “ With my torch I kindled the morn¬ 
ings. From my cup I poured the blackness of the night. 
1 strewed the marriage-altar and dug the grave. I set 
on fire the cities and the forest. I palsied the eloquent 


LAST THINGS. 


1$1 

tongue, and spread the sick-bed, and delivered the cap¬ 
tive, and awoke the song, and garnered the harvest. 
Out of my bosom flew the white dove of peace, and 
from my hand were flung the arrows of war. I brought 
message of mercy to one, and from another I took away 
the last chance. I pulled on the chariot of the King. 
Between the eternities I fly. One stroke more of my 
wing and I shall be at rest. The time is short. Pre¬ 
pare ! Prepare! 

Y. Again I remark that we are coming nearer the 
last moment of our life. That is often the most cheer¬ 
ful moment. John Howard talked of it with exhilara¬ 
tion, and selected his own burial-place, saying to his 
friend, “A spot near the village of Dauphiny would 
suit me nicely.” When John Doule was dying in the 
triumph of the Gospel, some one said, “ Let us pray.” 
“Ho,” said another Christian, “let us sing him over the 
Jordan!” But it will be a dark moment if we are un¬ 
fitted for it. When we get in the last two minutes of 
our lives, there will be no time left for any thing. You 
might as w r ell try to strike a match and get a light on a 
ship’s deck in the midst of a hurricane as to prepare for 
eternity when the winds of death are in full blast. It is 
a poor time to start to get your house insured when the 
flames are bursting out of all the windows, and it is a 
poor time to attempt to prepare for death when the re¬ 
alities of eternity are taking hold of us. Fortunately 
for those who stay behind, the remorse of those who 
leave the w r orld unprepared is not usually observed. In 
the exhausted physical condition nothing is especially 
evident. But I suppose the soul flies around terribly, 
and tries to hold back, and flutters its wings like a cap- 


LAST THINGS. 


1Q£ 

tured eagle, and writhes, and turns, and tries to batter 
itself loose from its pursuers. If you come to a preci¬ 
pice, and look a thousand feet down, you get dizzy and 
want to hold fast. How then must the unprepared soul 
feel when it comes to the brink of this life and looks 
down—further than a stone could drop in a thousand 
years, and irresistible forces are pushing it to the verge, 
and it knows that there is nothing to clutch, nothing to 
brace itself against! The soul says, “ The last minute 
has come. Ho time to pray, or to rehearse the past, or 
to cry for mercy. Every thing done, and irrevocably 
done. Here I stand on the dividing line between two 
worlds. Shall I jump? Which way shall I jump? 
Shall I fly ? Which way shall I fly ?” 

‘A California stage-driver, after having been engaged 
in that business for many years, was dying, and in his 
last moment he put his foot out of the bed and swung it 
back and forth. Some one said to him, “ Why do you 
make that motion with your foot ?” He replied, “ I am 
on the down grade, and I can not get my foot on the 
brake.” When our last moment comes, we can not stop. 
Our going will be inevitable, and we will not be able to 
put our foot on the brake. 

“ Lo! on a narrow neck of land, 

’Twixt two unbounded seas I stand, 

Yet how insensible! 

A point of time, a moment’s space, 

Removes me to yon heavenly place, 

Or shuts me up in hell!” 

I congratulate all Christian people on the fact that 
they have come to the last Sabbath of the last month of 
the year, for the reason that they are nearer the end of 
all their sorrows. • 


LAST THINGS. 


193 


Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains I was walking 
with some of the passengers to relieve the overladen 
stage, and one of them gave me his history. He said, 
“ With my wife I came to California twenty years ago. 
We suffered every hardship. I went to the mines, hut 
had no luck. I afterward worked at a trade, but had no 
luck. Then I went to farming, but had no luck. We 
suffered almost starvation. Every thing seemed to go 
against us. While we were in complete poverty, my 
wife died. After her death I went again to the mines. 
I struck a vein of gold which yielded me forty thousand 
dollars. I am now on my way to San Francisco to 
transfer the mine, for which I am to receive one hun¬ 
dred thousand dollars.” “ Then,” said I, “you are worth 
one hundred and forty thousand dollars.” He said, 
“ Yes; but it comes too late. My wife is gone. The 
money is nothing to me now.” 

So there are those whose entire life is made up of 
poverty and misfortune. When success comes it comes 
too late, and they can not enjoy it. But, glory to God! 
the path of tears has a terminus. The storm will not 
blow on forever. Child of God, you are not far off from 
the last disappointment and the last groan. The Lamb, 
which is in the midst of the throne, shall lead you to 
living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all 
tears from your eyes. 

To others my subject brings arousal. In three hours 
and ten minutes more the volume of your year’s oppor¬ 
tunity and behavior will be closed, clasped, sealed, and 
laid away on the shelf of history. No prayer can be 
added; no privilege inscribed; no sin erased. Just as 
the Book closes to-night at twelve o’clock, it will be un- 
I 


194 


LAST THINGS. 


til the archangel wrenches it open. The recording angel 
is this moment writing the last sentence of the tremen¬ 
dous volume. He either, writes “ December 31st, 1871,” 
your name under it, and the words “Accepted Christ , 
and all is well” or, in the other case, he writes “De¬ 
cember 31st, 1871,” your name under it, and the words 
“ Would not turn. The year and the day of grace are 
ended. lie must perish /” and the lids of the great 
book come shut with a strong hand; and as the angel 
lays it down at the foot of the throne, I hear him say 
with the solemnity of the judgment day, “Ho more mer¬ 
cy for that man. It is the last time. Holy Spirit, fly 
away! Angels, cease to hover! Sword of truth, be 
sheathed! Gate of heaven, clang shut! Done! Done! 
It is the last time /” 

Shall not these closing moments of the year witness 
your repentance % Shall not this hour record your flight 
from sin ? 

I have read that when the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence was being made in Philadelphia in 1776, the people 
were so anxious to know the exact moment when the 
document was completed that they placed a man at the 
door of the hall where the delegates w T ere assembled, 
and another man on the stairs leading to the tower, and 
another man with his hand on the rope of the bell; and 
then, when the last signer of the Declaration had affixed 
his name, the man at the door shouted upward filing!” 
and the man on the stairs heard it, and shouted upward, 
“Ring!” and the man with his hand on the bell of the 
rope heard it, and sounded the tidings over the city. 

If to-night, in the strength of Christ, you would make 
your declaration of independence from the power of sin, 


LAST THINGS. 


195 


there would be great rejoicing on earth and in heaven. 
I would cry upward to the angels poising in mid air, 
Ring! and they to those standing on the battlements 
of heaven, Ring / and those on the battlements to the 
dwellers in the temples and in the mansions, Ring ! and 
all heaven would ring, and ring, at the news of a soul 
redeemed. 


196 


NO REST HERE. 


NO REST HERE. 


“Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest .”—Micah ii., 10. 

HIS was the drum-beat of a prophet who wanted to 



arouse his people from their oppressed and sinful 
condition; but it may just as properly be uttered now 
as then. Bells, by long exposure and much ringing, lose 
their clearness of tone; but this rousing bell of the Gos¬ 
pel strikes in as clear a tone as when it first rang on the 


air. 


As far as I can see, your great want and mine is rest. 
From the time we enter life, a great many vexations and 
annoyances take after us. We may have our holidays, 
and our seasons of recreation and quiet, but where is the 
man in this house, come to seventy years of age, who 
has found entire rest? The fa.ct is that God did not 
make this world to rest in. A ship might as well go 
down off Cape Hatteras to find smooth water as a man 
in this world to find quiet. From the way that God has 
strewn the thorns, and hung the clouds, and sharpened 
the tusks; from the colds that distress us, and the heats 
that smite us, and the pleurisies that stab us, and the fe¬ 
vers that consume us, I know that he did not make this" 
world as a place to loiter in. God does every thing suc¬ 
cessfully; and this world would be a very different world 
if it were intended for us to lounge in. It does right 
well for a few hours. Indeed, it is magnificent! Noth¬ 
ing but finite wisdom and goodness could have mixed 


NO REST HERE. 


197 


this beverage of water, or liung up these brackets of 
stars, or trained these voices of rill, and bird, and ocean 
—so that God has but to lift his hand, and the whole 
world breaks forth into orchestra. But, after all, it is 
only the splendors of a king’s highway, over which we 
are to march on to eternal conquests. 

You and I have seen men who tried to rest here. 
They builded themselves great stores. They gathered 
around them the patronage of merchant princes. The 
voice of their bid shook the money-markets. They had 
stock in the most successful railroads, and in “safety de¬ 
posits” great rolls of government securities. They had 
emblazoned carriages, high-mettled steeds, footmen, plate 
that confounded lords and senators who sat at their ta¬ 
ble, tapestry on wdiich floated the richest designs of for¬ 
eign looms, splendor of canvas on the wall, exquisite¬ 
ness of music rising among pedestals of bronze, and 
dropping, soft as light, on snow of sculpture. Here let 
them rest. Put back the embroidered curtain, and shake 
up the pillow of down. Turn out the lights! It is elev¬ 
en o’clock at night. Let slumber drop upon the eyelids, 
and the air float through the half-opened lattice drowsy 
with midsummer perfume. Stand back, all care, anxie¬ 
ty, and trouble! But no! they will not stand back. 
They rattle the lattice. They look under the canopy. 
With rough touch they startle his pulses. They cry out 
at twelve o’clock at night, “ Awake, man! IIow can 
you sleep when things are so uncertain ? What about 
those stocks ? Hark to the tap of that fire-bell: it is 
your district! How if you should die soon ? Awake, 
man! Think of it! Who will get your property when 
you are gone? What will they do with it? Wake up! 


198 


NO BEST HERE. 


Riclies sometimes take wings. How if you should get 
poor? Wake up!” Rising on one elbow, the man of 
fortune looks out into the darkness of the room, and 
wipes the dampness from his forehead, and says, “ Alas! 
For all this scene of wealth aiid magnificence—no rest!” 

I passed down a street of a city with a merchant. 
He knew all the finest houses on the street. He said, 
“ There is something the matter in all these houses. In 
that one it is conjugal infelicity. In that one, a dissi¬ 
pated son. In that, a dissolute father. In that, an id¬ 
iot child. In that, the prospect of bankruptcy.” This 
world’s wealth can give no permanent satisfaction. This 
is not your rest. 

You and I have seen men try in another direction. A 
man says, “ If I could only rise to such and such a place 
of renown; if I could gain that office; if I could only 
get the stand, and have my sentiments met with one 
good round of hand-clapping applause; if I could only 
write a book that would live, or make a speech that 
would thrill, or do an action that would resound!” The 
tide turns in his favor. His name is on ten thousand 
lips. He is bowed to, and sought after, and advanced. 
Men drink his health at great dinners. At his fiery 
words the multitudes huzza! From galleries of beauty 
they throw garlands. From house-tops, as he passes in 
long procession, they shake out the national standards. 
Here let him rest. It is eleven o’clock at night. On 
pillow stuffed with a nation’s praise let him lie down. 
Hush! all disturbant voices. In his dream let there be 
hoisted a throne, and across it march a coronation. 
Hush! Hush! 

“Wake up!” says a rough voice. “Political senti- 


NO REST HERE. 


199 


ment is changing. How if you should lose this place of 
honor? Wake up! The morning papers are to be full 
of denunciation. Hearken to the execrations of those 
who once caressed you. By to-morrow night there will 
be multitudes sneering at the words which last night you 
expected would be universally admired. How can you 
sleep when every thing depends upon the next turn 
of the great tragedy ? Up, man! Off of this pillow!” 
The man, with head yet hot from his last oration, starts 
up suddenly, looks out upon the night, but sees nothing 
except the flowers that lie on his stand, or the scroll from 
which he read his speech, or the books from which he 
quoted his authorities, and goes to his desk to finish his 
neglected correspondence, or to pen an indignant line to 
some reporter, or sketch the plan for a public defense 
against the assaults of the people. Happy when he got 
his first lawyer’s brief; exultant when he triumphed 
over his first political'rival; yet, sitting oil the very top 
of all that this world offers of praise, he exclaims, “ No 
rest! no rest!” 

The very world that now applauds will soon hiss. 
That world said of the great Webster, “ What a states¬ 
man ! What wonderful exposition of the Constitution! 
A man fit for any position.” That same world said, aft¬ 
er a while, “ Down with him! He is an office-seeker. 
He is a sot. He is a libertine. Away with him!” And 
there is no peace for the man until he lays down his bro¬ 
ken heart in the grave at Marshfield. While Charles 
Mathews was performing in London, before immense 
audiences, one day a worn-out and gloomy man came 
into a doctor’s shop, saying, “ Doctor, what can you do 
for me?” The doctor examined his case and said, 


200 


NO BEST HERE. 


“My advice is that you go and see Charles Mathews.” 
“ Alas! alas!” said the man, “ I myself am Charles 
Mathew T s.” Jeffrey thought that if he could only be 
judge, that would be the making of him; got to be 
judge, and cufsed the day in which he was born. Alex¬ 
ander wanted to submerge the world with his greatness; 
submerged it, and then drank himself to death because 
he could not stand the trouble. Burns thought he would 
give every thing if he could win the favor of courts and 
princes; won it, and amid the shouts of a great enter¬ 
tainment, when poets, and orators, and duchesses were 
adoring liis genius, wished that he could creep back into 
the obscurity in which he dwelt on the day when he 
wrote of the 

“ Daisy, wee modest, crimson-tipped flower.” 

Napoleon wanted to make all Europe tremble at his 
power; made it tremble, then died, his entire military 
achievements dwindling down to a pair of military boots 
which he insisted on having on his feet when dying. At 
Versailles I saw a picture of Napoleon in his triumphs. 
I went into another room and saw a bust of Napoleon as 
he appeared at St. Helena; but oh, w T hat grief and an¬ 
guish in the face of the latter! The first was Napoleon 
in triumph, the last was Napoleon with his heart broken. 
How they laughed and cried when silver-tongued Sheri¬ 
dan, in the midday of prosperity, harangued the people 
of Briton, and how they howled at and execrated him 
when, outside of the room where his corpse lay, his cred¬ 
itors tried to get his miserable bones and sell them! 

This world for rest ? “ Aha!” cry the waters, “ no rest 
here—we plunge to the sea ” “ Aha 1” cry the moun¬ 
tains, “no rest here—we crumble to the plain.” “ Aha!” 


NO REST HERE. 


201 


cry the towers, “ no rest here—we follow Babylon, and 
Thebes, and Nineveh into the dust.” No rest for the 
flowers; they fade. No rest for the stars; they die. 
No rest for man; he must work, toil, suffer, and slave. 

Now, for what have I said all this ? Just to prepare 
you for the text: “ Arise ye, and depart; for this is not 
your rest.” I am going to make you a grand offer. 
Some of you remember that when gold was discovered 
in California, large companies were made up and started 
off to get their fortune. To-day I want to make up a 
party for the Land of Gold. I hold in my hand a deed 
from the Proprietor of the estate, in which he offers to 
all who will join the company ten thousand shares of in¬ 
finite value, in a city whose streets are gold, whose harps 
are gold, whose crowns are gold. You have read of the 
Crusaders—how that many thousands of them went off 
to conquer the Holy Sepulchre. I ask you to join a 
grander crusade—not for the purpose of conquering the 
sepulchre of a dead Christ, but for the purpose of reach¬ 
ing the throne of a living Jesus. When an army is to 
be made up, the recruiting officer examines the volun¬ 
teers ; he tests their eyesight; he sounds their lungs; he 
measures their stature ; they must be just right, or they 
are rejected. But there shall be no partiality in making 
up this army of Christ. Whatever your moral or phys¬ 
ical stature, whatever your dissipations, whatever your 
crimes, whatever your weaknesses, I have a commission 
from the Lord Almighty to make up this regiment of re¬ 
deemed souls, and I cry, “Arise ye, and depart; for this 
is not your rest.” Many of you have lately joined this 
company, and my desire is that you may all join it. 
Why not ? You know in your own hearts’ experience 
I 2 


202 


NO BEST HEBE. 


that what I have said about this world is true—that it is 
no place to rest in. There are hundreds here weary— 
oh, how weary—weary with sin; weary with trouble; 
weary with bereavement. Some of you have been 
pierced through and through. You carry the scars of a 
thousand conflicts, in which you have bled at every pore; 
and you sigh, “ Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that 
I might fly away and be at rest!” You have taken the 
cup of this world’s pleasure and drunk it to the dregs, 
and still the thirst claws at your tongue, and the fever 
strikes to your brain. You lrave chased Pleasure through 
every valley, by every stream, amid every brightness, and 
under every shadow ; but just at the moment when you 
were all ready to put your hand upon the rosy, laughing 
sylph of the wood, she turned upon you with the glare 
of a fiend and the eye of a satyr, her locks adders, and 
her breath the chill damp of a grave. Out of Jesus 
Christ no rest. No voice to silence the storm. No light 
to kindle the darkness. No dry dock to repair the split 
bulwark. 

Thank God, I can tell you something better. If there 
is no rest on earth, there is rest in heaven. Oh ye who 
are worn out with work, your hands calloused, your 
backs bent, your eyes half put out, your fingers w T orn 
with the needle that in this world you may never lay 
down; ye discouraged ones, who have been waging a 
hand-to-hand fight for bread; ye to whom the night 
brings little rest and the morning more drudgery—oh 
ye of the weary hand, and the weary side, and the weary 
foot, hear me talk about rest! 

Look at that company of enthroned ones. Look at 
their hands; look at their feet; look at their eyes. It 


HO REST HERE. 


203 


can not be that those bright ones ever toiled ? Yes! yes! 
These packed the Chinese tea-boxes, and through mis¬ 
sionary instruction escaped into glory. These sweltered 
on Southern plantations, and one night, after the cotton¬ 
picking, went up as white as if they had never been 
black. Those died of overtoil in the Lowell carpet fac¬ 
tories, and these in Manchester mills; those helped build 
the Pyramids, and these broke away from work on the 
day Christ was hounded out of Jerusalem. No more 
towers to build; heaven is done. No more garments to 
weave; the robes are finished. No more harvests to' 
raise; the garners are full. Oh sons and daughters of 
toil! arise ye and depart, for that is your rest. 

Scovill M‘Callum, a boy of my Sunday-school, while 
dying, said to his mother, “ Don’t cry, but sing, sing, 

“ ‘ There is rest for the weary, 

There is rest for the weary.’ ” 

Then, putting his wasted hands over his heart, said, 
“ There is rest for me.” 

But there are some of you who want to hear about 
the land where they never have any heartbreaks, and no 
graves are dug. Where is your father and mother ? The 
most of you are orphans. I look around, and where I 
see one man who has parents living, I see ten who are 
orphans. Where are your children? Where I see one 
family circle that is unbroken, I see three or four that 
have been desolated. One lamb gone out of this fold; 
one flower plucked from that garland; one golden link 
broken from that chain; here a bright light put out, and 
there another, and yonder another. With such griefs, 
how are you to rest ? Will there ever be a power that 
can attune that silent voice, or kindle the lustre of that 


204 


NO REST HERE. 


closed eye, or put spring and dance into that little foot ? 
When we bank up the dust over the dead, is the sod 
never to be broken ? Is the cemetely to hear no sound 
but the tire of the hearse-wheel, or the tap of the bell at 
the gate as the long processions come in with their awful 
burdens of grief? Is the bottom of the grave gravel, 
and the top dust ? Ho ! no! no ! The tomb is only a 
place where we wrap our robes about us for a pleasant 
nap on our way home. The swellings of Jordan will 
only wash off the dust of the way. From the top of the 
'grave we catch a glimpse of the towers glinted with the 
sun that never sets. 

Oh ye whose locks are wet with the dews of the night 
of grief; ye whose hearts are heavy, because those well- 
known footsteps -sound no more at the doorway, yonder 
is your rest! There is David triumphant; but once he 
bemoaned Absalom. There is Abraham enthroned; but 
once he wept for Sarah. There is Paul exultant; but 
he once sat with his feet in the stocks. There is Payson 
radiant with immortal health; but on earth he was al¬ 
ways sick. Ho toil, no tears, no partings, no strife, no 
agonizing cough, no night. Ho storm to ruffle the crys¬ 
tal sea. Ho alarm to strike from the cathedral towers. 
Ho dirge throbbing from seraphic harps. Ho tremor in 
the everlasting song; but rest—perfect rest —unending 
rest. 

Into that rest how many of our loved ones have gone! 
The past summer has been one of unusual fatality. Fac¬ 
tory, railroad, and steam-boat casualties have multiplied. 
Whole families 'have perished through the carelessness 
of officials. The land is in mourning for the dead. Hev- 
er in one summer of my ministry have so many, of my 


NO REST HERE. 


205 


congregation been swept off by disease. The little chil¬ 
dren have been gathered np into the bosom of Christ. 
One of them went out of the arms of a widowed moth¬ 
er, following its father who died a few weeks before. In 
its last moment it seemed to see the departed father, for 
it said, looking upward with brightened countenance, 
“ Papa, take me up!” 

Others put down the work of midlife, feeling they 
could hardly be spared from the store or shop for a day, 
but are to be spared from it forever. Two of our peo¬ 
ple went in old age. One came tottering on his staff, 
and used to sit at the foot of the pulpit, his wrinkled face 
radiant with the light that falls from the throne of God. 
Another that was nearer to me than them all: from my 
own circle she went up. Having lived a life of Chris¬ 
tian consistency here, ever busy with kindnesses for her 
children, her heart full of that meek and quiet spirit that 
is in the sight of God of great price, suddenly her coun¬ 
tenance was transfigured, and the gate was opened, and 
she took her place amid that great cloud of witnesses 
that hover about the throne ! 

Glorious consolation! They are not dead. You can 
not make me believe they are dead. They have only 
moved on. With more love than that with which they 
greeted us on earth, they watch us from their high place, 
and their voices cheer us in our struggle for the sky. 
Hail, spirits blessed, now that ye have passed the flood 
and won the crown! With weary feet we press up the 
shining way, until in everlasting reunion we shall meet 
again. Oh ! won’t it be grand when, our conflicts done 
and our partings over, we shall clasp hands, and cry out, 
“ This is Heaven ?” 


206 


NO REST HERE. 


But how if we do not meet our heavenly friends ? We 
can not meet them unless we travel the same path they 
trod. 

There is an old hymn, only a part of which I can think 
of now: 

“Oh! there will be mourning,mourning, 

Mourning at the judgment seat of Christ. 

Parents and children there will part, 

Parents and children there will part, 

Will part to meet to no more. 

Oh! there will be mourning, mourning, 

Mourning at the judgment seat of Christ. 

“Brothers and sisters there will part, 

Brothers and sisters there will part, 

Will part to meet no more. 

Oh ! there will be mourning, mourning, 

Mourning at the judgment seat of Christ. 

Wives and husbands there will part, 

Wives and husbands there will part, 

Will part to meet no more. ” 

It is sad to say farewell on earth, but how sad to say 
farewell in the judgment—to gaze eternally up toward 
the place where our loved ones dwell, but be ourselves 
thrown out! Oh the bitterness, and the agony, and the 
heart-break of that last parting! By the thrones of your 
departed kindred, by their gentle hearts, and the tender¬ 
ness and love with which they now call you from the 
skies, I beg you to start on the high-road to heaven. 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


207 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED * 

“ How much owest thou unto my Lord ?”—Luke xvi., 5. 

• 

W HEN the first of next January comes, you will 
take an account of stock, and you will bring up 
in a balance-sheet all the values and all the indebtedness. 
Indeed, often during the year you ask yourself the ques¬ 
tions, “ What am I worth “ How much do I owe V y 
You say, “ There is so much that I shall have to pay for 
house-rent; so much for store-rent; so much to meet the 
interest on that mortgage, lest it be foreclosed; so much 
to meet that note in the bank, lest it be protested.” I 
suppose that to-night you could put down on a piece of 
paper, in five minutes, in round figures, your whole in¬ 
debtedness to men. And yet how you halt and stumble 
when the question is put to you to-night, that was pro¬ 
pounded by the steward to the debtors of his master, 
“ How much owest thou unto my Lord The fact is 
that we are more bothered about the five hundred dol¬ 
lars that we owe to our neighbors than we are about that 
insolvency into which we have been plunged to an 
amount so far beyond the millions, and the billions, and 
the quadrillions, that there is not room enough on the 
scroll of the sky for the archangel to put the figures. 

When, in 1857, the banks went down, insurance com¬ 
panies went down, and mercantile establishments went 
down, there was a great panic. But how stolid our in- 

* Preached on the evening of Dedication day. 


208 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


difference when the great truth is announced to-night 
that the whole earth has suspended payment to God, and 
that it can not pay one per cent, on a million of dollars! 
Let us now acknowledge our obligations to God. We 
do not appreciate their magnitude. The traveler on the 
Pacific Railroad, going toward California day after day, 
asks, “ Why, where are the Rocky Mountains V ’ The 
fact is that the train goes up so very gradually for hun¬ 
dreds and hundreds of miles, the traveler does not see 
the precipices and the rocks that he expected to see; so 
that when he gets to Sherman, where he is eight or nine 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, he can not ap¬ 
preciate the fact that he is at so great an altitude. Well, 
my friends, we have been going on in this path of life, 
over the mountain of God’s blessing, rising higher and 
higher, until we are not aware of the great altitude of 
benediction to which we have been lifted; yet here w T e 
stand to-night, thousands of feet above the level of that 
great sea of want and woe upon which millions of our 
fellow-men are tossed, and we can not appreciate the el¬ 
evation. Oh! you need to pile the Sierra Nevada and 
the Wahsatch on the top of the Rocky Mountains to ap¬ 
preciate the meaning of the Psalmist when he says, “ Thy 
righteousness is like the great mountains /” 

I want to put on your table to-night the book of God’s 
• account—the book of your indebtedness. Doing busi¬ 
ness for eternity, my brothers and my sisters, we want 
to do it with our eyes open. I want you to gather to¬ 
gether all the things you have ever done for God, and 
put them in one line, and add them up; and then gath¬ 
er together all the things that God has done for you, put 
them in one line, and add them up; then subtract the 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED . 


209 


lesser from the greater. Don’t be afraid. The settle¬ 
ment will be right. If God owes ns, he is rich, and can 
pay. If we owe God, w T e are honest, and will try to pay. 

Oh that we might feel the pressure of the Almighty 
Spirit of God while we open the arithmetics of eternity, 
and try to calculate, “ How much owest thou unto my 
Lord ?” 

You remember one of our services, w T hen, during the 
sermon, a woman in the back part of the house, at the 
call to the unconverted, came up the aisle and flung her¬ 
self at the foot of the pulpit, crying for mercy. Oh that 
to-night we might have the more overwhelming scene of 
the whole audience bowing down at the feet of Jesus! 

How I w T ill put on your table these bills of indebted¬ 
ness. If they are wrong, don’t pay them; reject them. 
If they are right, say so. The first bill of indebtedness 
that I put upon your table to-night is the bill for rent. 
This world is the house that God built for us to live in. 
lie lets it to us already furnished. What a carpet!— 
the grass interwoven with figure of flow T ers. What a 
ceiling!—the frescoed sky. What tapestried pillars!— 
the rocks. What a front door!—the flaming sunrise 
through which the day comes in. What a back door!— 
the sunset, through which the day goes out. What a 
chandelier and candelabra!—the sun and stars. What a 
flour-bin!—the wheat-fields. What chimneys !—Strom- 
boli and Cotopaxi. Ah! the Alhambra and Windsor 
Castle are but Queenstown shanties compared with this 
great house that God has put up for us to live in, and the 
rent is due! Are we ready to pay it ? 

The next bill I find on our table of indebtedness to 
God is the bill for board. We have been sitting at 


210 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


God’s table ten, thirty, fifty, seventy years. Put the 
board down low—at three dollars per week, and in forty 
years it is six thousand two hundred and forty dollars. 
From the apples you ate in the orchard when a boy, to 
the fruit last night upon your tea-table, it all came out 
of the same hand. From the horn that called you from 
the hay-field years ago, to the silver bell that tinkled on 
your table at noon to-day, you have never known the 
pang, the sickening horror of having nothing to eat. 
We pay the butcher, the baker, and the fruit-dealer, but 
we do not pay that God who makes the food, and who 
gives us the money with which to buy it. If on Satur¬ 
day night, or at the end of the month, they with whom 
we board present the bill, and we do not pay it, we are 
put out; but year after year, and for scores of years, 
have we been permitted to sit at God’s table without 
paying, and the luxuries are greater now than ever be¬ 
fore. Every one of you has consumed whole acres of 
corn, whole flocks of birds, whole droves of sheep, whole 
herds of cattle. Ah! it has been no cheap thing to feed 
your appetites for forty years; and do you think it is a 
mean, unfair, or dishonest thing, when to-night there is 
put upon your table a bill for board ? 

The next bill I find upon our table is a bill for clothes. 
There is but one manufactory of Gobelin tapestry, and 
that is at Paris, under the control of the government ; 
and the fabrics are woven for royal families only. But 
in all the earth there are factories going day and night, 
weaving a more wonderful fabric than royal tapestry for 
us, the King’s children. The cotton plantation sends us 
socks. The flax-field sends us linen. The sheep’s wool 
supplies us cloaks. The sable and the ermine yield us 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


211 


furs. What coats, what hats, what shoes, what mufflers 
it takes to supply you all your Jife! Put it down low. 
How much? Two hundred dollars per year? Can you 
clothe yourself at that rate ? Two hundred dollars per 
year for forty years is eight thousand dollars for clothes • 
sixty years , twelve thousand dollars for clothes. 

The next bill I find on our table to-night is for that 
which we owe God for our families. Where did you 
get your families from ? u God setteth the solitary in 
families.” Have you a companion who is kind, gentle, 
sympathetic, helpful—sympathetic with all your joys 
and sorrows ? Was it good luck or the merry sleigh-ride 
that gave her to you ? Ho. Proverbs xix., 14: “ A good 
wife is from the Lord.” Have you children round about 
your table ? Have they eyesight, when so many have 
been born blind ? Have they hearing, when so many 
have been born deaf ? Can they talk and sing, when so 
many have been born dumb ? Have they the use of leg 
and foot, when so many have been born cripples ? Who 
gave you those glad, healthy, romping children ? How 
much will you take for them ? If I should offer you the 
Kohinoor diamond for one, Chatsworth Park, for an¬ 
other, and ten millions of dollars for another, you would 
laugh me to scorn! You would not sell the eldest one, 
because it is the first-born; you would not sell the youn¬ 
gest one, because it is the youngest and the pet; nor this 
one, because it is the very image of its father; nor that 
one, because it looks like its mother; nor this one, be¬ 
cause it has always been sick, and you especially love it; 
nor that one, because it is so healthful that you could not 
think of giving it up. I do not want you to give them 
up. I only want you, if gold, and diamonds, and all the 


212 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


earth can not buy them, to think of the magnitude of the 
question. I ask you, standing in your family group, 
“ How much owest thou unto my Lord ?” Ah ! he gave 
them to you. During all those sick nights, when you 
rocked that young life, or were so anxious you could not 
sleep, though others watched, that you came in every lit¬ 
tle while to see how things were going, and hour after 
hour carried the suffering little one on a pillow, and it 
did not grow heavy, you found no rest until you were 
sure it was going to get well—He watched with you and 
kept your heart from breaking, and answered your 
prayer. 

When you go home to-night you will see your little 
ones in the nursery—all there save those that Christ has 
in heaven; and they are yours just as much as they ever 
were; and when you go up at last, will come out at 
heaven’s gate shouting, “Father's come!" “ Mother's 
come!" Oh ye who have sweet, darling children on 
earth and in heaven, “Ilow much—how much owest thou 
unto my Lord f" 

The next bill for indebtedness that I find upon the 
table is the hill for taxes . You have paid the city taxes, 
the state taxes, the United States taxes, but have you 
paid God for letting you live in this beautiful city and 
in this glorious country ? Think of the contrast between 
your own condition and that of those who heard the 
howling Communists rushing through the Champs Fly- 
sees of Paris, their shoes soaked with the blood of wom¬ 
en and children. What is this Brooklyn that we live in ? 
Hew York in its better mood, and surrounded with its 
family. What is this great nation ? The most divinely 
blessed that ever existed. Washington and Jefferson 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


213 


never dreamed of such a land as this has got to be. The 
Jews were God’s ancient people; Americans are God’s 
modern people. And we have the advantage over them. 
They wandered forty years through the desert; we have 
gone for nigh a hundred years through a garden. God 
struck one rock for them, and the water came down to 
slake their thirst; all the rocks of this land are struck to 
supply our thirst. One flock of quails came down to the 
Israelites, and they ate, and died; this land is full of 
quails, and grosbeaks, and robins, and prairie-fowl, and 
the nation eats and lives. Manna came down in the 
dew for the Israelites, but if it was not picked right up, 
it became wormy; God drops the manna down on all 
the wheat-fields from Pennsylvania to California, and 
we gather it into the granaries. You may not like the 
President of the United States; you may not like the 
governor; you may not like the mayor; but, come now, 
men of all parties, be frank, and acknowledge that it is a 
glorious country to live in. You have paid the amount 
of earthly taxes you owe—the city tax, the state tax, the 
United States tax, but “ how much owest thou unto my 
Lord?” 

The next bill I find on the table is a booh bill. How 
.much is your Bible worth ? Scientific men are trying to 
show us, through the newspapers and through philosoph¬ 
ic papers, that our race is descended from the monkey. 
But we, who believe in God’s Word, read there that God 
made man in his own image, and not in the image of a 
monkey. Get out of my way with your damnable Dar¬ 
winian theories! Scientific men can not understand the 
origin of this world. We open our Bibles, and we feel 
like the Christian Arab, who said to the skeptic, when 


214 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


asked by him why he believed that there w T as a God, 
“ How do I know that it was a man instead of a camel 
that went past my tent last night ? Why, I* know him 
by the tracks.” Then, looking over at the setting sun, 
the Arab said to the skeptic, “ Look there! that is not 
the work of a man; that is the track of a God.” We 
have all these things revealed in God’s Word. Dear old 
book! My father loved it. It trembled in my mother’s 
hand when she was nigh fourscore years old. It has 
been * under the pillow of three of my brothers when 
they died. It is a very different book from what it once 
was to me. I used to take it as a splendid poem, and 
read it as I read John Milton. I took it up sometimes 
as a treatise on law, and read it as I did Blackstone. I 
took it as a fine history, and read it as I did Josephus. 
Ah! now it is not the poem; it is not the treatise of law; 
it is not the history. It is simply a family album that I 
open, and see right before me the face of God, my Fa¬ 
ther ; of Christ, my Savior; of heaven, my eternal home. 

As I take up your family Bible to-night, bright with 
promises, and redolent with boyhood memories, and 
mighty with principles that are to regenerate the world, 
I ask you, ye men who are descended from those who 
fought until they died in their tracks for the defense of. 
this book; ye sons of the Covenanters, who were hound¬ 
ed among the Highlands of Scotland; ye sons of men 
who went on ladders of fire from English soil to heaven 
for this grand, glorious, triumphant, God-given Book, 
“IIow muck owest thou unto my Lord f ” 

There is one more bill of indebtedness laid upon the 
table, and that is the bill for your redemption . I have 
been told that the bells in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


215 


never toll save when the king or some member of the 
royal family dies. The thunders in the dome of heaven 
never tolled so dolefully as when they rang out to the 
world the news, “King Jesus is dead!” When a king 
dies, the whole land is put in black: they shroud the pil¬ 
lars ; they put the people in procession; they march to 
a doleful drum-beat. What shall we do now that our 
King is dead % Put blackness on the gates of the morn¬ 
ing. Let the cathedral organs wail; let the winds sob; 
let all the generations of men fall in line, and beat a fu¬ 
neral-march of woe! woe! woe! as we go to the grave 
of our dead King. 

In Philadelphia they have a habit, after the coffin is 
deposited in the grave, of the friends going formally up 
and standing at the brink of the grave and looking in. 
So I take you all to-night to look into the grave of our 
dead King. The lines of care are gone out of his face. 
The wounds have stopped bleeding. Just lift up that 
lacerated hand. Lift it up, and then lay it down softly 
over that awful gash in the left side. He is dead! He 
is dead! 

Eight hundred years after Edward I. was buried, they 
brought up his body, and they found that he still lay with 
a crown on his head. More than eighteen hundred years 
have passed, and I look into the grave of my dead King, 
and I see not only a crown, but “ on his head are many 
crowns.” And, what is more, he is rising. Yea, he has 
risen! Ye who came to the grave weeping, go away re¬ 
joicing. Let your dirges now change to anthems. He 
lives! Take off the blackness from the gates of the 
morning. He lives! Let earth and heaven keep jubi¬ 
lee. He lives! I know that my Redeemer lives. For 


216 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


whom that battle and that victory? For whom? For 
you. 

I was reading, a day or two ago, about a farmer who 
was found kneeling at a soldier’s grave near Nashville. 
Some one came to him and said, “ Why do you pay so 
much attention to this grave? Was your son buried 
here ?” “ No,” he said. “ During the war, my family 

were all sick. I knew not how to leave them. I was 
drafted. One of my neighbors came over and said, £ I 
will go for you; I have no family.’ He went off. He 
was wounded at Chickamauga. He was carried to the 
hospital and died. And, sir, I have come a great many 
miles that I might write over his grave these words: ‘Afe 
died for me .’” Christ w T as our substitute. He w r ent 
forth to fight our battles. He died. Oh ! that we might 
write over his grave to-night, each one of us, u IIe died 
for me /” 

If you were told in another place of a man who had 
done as much for his country as Christ has done for you 
and me, you would break forth in long and loud acclaim, 
and clap your hands, and stamp your feet, to show your 
enthusiasm. But oh! how few eyes weep w r hen I tell of 
that cross, where all the sorrows of the past and all the 
anguish of the future, and the wrath of heaven and the 
w T oes of hell, united to tear the heart of the Son of God ; 
and I cry out to you, “How much owest thou unto my 
Lord f ” 

Oh! get some delicate scale that you may weigh His 
burdens. Get some delicate chalice that you may meas¬ 
ure His tears. Listen to the hard breathing of this dying 
One, whose only crime was that he came to save the 
world. As I think of the cold nights that fell on him, 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


217 


of the tempests that struck him, of the whips that flayed 
him, of the insulting hands that slapped him on the 
cheek, of the mouths that spit upon him; and while you 
stand there, seeing the blood dripping down, from brow 
to cheek, from cheek to breast, from breast to knee, from 
knee to foot, from foot to the ground, I stand amid that 
red rain of anguish and cry out, “ Oh you blood-bought 
man and woman, how much—how much'owest thou unto 
my Lord f ” There are hundreds of men and women in 
this house who will respond, “ Every thing I owe to him 
—my time, my talents, my heart—every thing.” 

After the battle of Petersburg, in my church in Phil¬ 
adelphia, we received word, just before the service be¬ 
gan, that there were two or three thousand men wound¬ 
ed, bleeding, without any kind minister of mercy to at¬ 
tend them. I said to my people, “ I won’t make any ap¬ 
peals. There are two or three thousand men bleeding 
to death in Petersburg. Pass the plate.” What a col¬ 
lection we got! Women took the rings from their fin¬ 
gers and the adornments from their necks, and put them 
upon the plate. IIow shall we respond to-night, when 
we hear that our Lord J esus lies bleeding at the gate— 
bleeding at a hundred wounds—bleeding for us ! for 
us ! for us ! 

I have presented to you to-night these different bills 
—the bill for house-rent; the bill for board; the bill for 
clothing; the bill for the family; the bill for taxes; the 
book bill, and the redemption bill. Will you pay ? “ Oh 
yes,” every man says. The only question is, day by day, 
with this man and woman, “How much?” I can not 
tell. I simply know that in the olden times, under a dis¬ 
pensation not near so bright as this, they gave one tenth 
K 


218 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


to God. Is not our religion worth as much to us ? That 
question I leave to the conscience of every man and wom¬ 
an in this house. 

There are two w T ays of paying an indebtedness—to the 
law and to the creditor. If we owe and do not pay it, 
what is done ? The matter is put into the hands of an 
attorney; a summons is sent; a declaration is filed; 
judgment is declared in the case; execution is issued; 
and the sheriff goes forth and gets on the auction-block, 
and he cries, “ Going ! Going ! Gone /” The debt is col¬ 
lected by force. Then there is another way of paying a 
debt. We take up the bill and say,“This bill is due. 
Here is the money.” The one payment is made cheer¬ 
fully, the other by the force of the law. 

God collects his bills in both ways. There are hun¬ 
dreds of business men, Christian men, in Hew York City, 
who have gone down, for the simple reason, as I believe, 
that they did not give to God that wdiich belonged to 
him. They did not give him any percentage at all, or 
such a very small percentage that the Lord God collect¬ 
ed his own bills by fire, by storm, or by death. Two men 
I knew very well, some years ago, on the streets of Hew 
York. They were talking about the matter of benevo¬ 
lence. One said to the other,“You give too much. I 
will wait until I get a large pile of money, and then I 
will give.” “ Ho,” said the other, “ I will give as God 
prospers me.” Hear the sequel. The former lives in 
Hew York City to-day, dollarless; the latter gathered 
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I believe that 
the reason why many people are kept poor is because 
they do not give enough. If a man gives in the right 
spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the Church, he is 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


219 


insured for time and for eternity. The Bank of En¬ 
gland is a weak institution compared with the bank that 
any Christian man can draw upon. That man w T ho stands 
by Christ, Christ will stand by him. Mark that: the 
man who stands by Christ will find Christ standing by 
him. 

We have to-day rededicated this church. We have 
reconsecrated it to God, and to the salvation of the mass¬ 
es. We have more room, and so more responsibility. 
God help us! One year ago, I said in the pulpit and 
through the press that a free church could and would 
be supported. Thousands doubted it. Other thousands 
laughed. God’s blessing came. In addition to a great 
many who came here who could give nothing, or but 
little, there came many of large means and large hearts. 

I showed you, in my statement this morning, that the in¬ 
come of the Church during the past year had exceed¬ 
ed its outgoes. Let the mouths of derision forever be 
stopped! The income exceeded the outgoes by fifteen 
hundred dollars, and that under very disadvantageous 
circumstances, considering the fact that for three months 
we had not our machinery fairly organized. The only 
thing between us and ultimate prosperity has been a 
floating debt, accrued in the erection of the Tabernacle. * 
This morning we cleared off three fourths of that debt; 
to-night we will clear off the rest of it, if God will help 
the people. My brethren and sisters, one more pull, and 
away wdth this encumbrance ! I have never asked you 
any thing with so. much earnestness as I ask you now to 
clear off that debt My body and soul are enlisted in 
this matter. I want a free church with a free Gospel. 
We believe that if we give the people an opportunity to 


220 


DUE-BILLS PRESENTED. 


respond in this matter, there will be no need of selling 
or renting the pews in order to pay the debt. If the 
great mass of the people of this country are ever to be 
brought to Christ, it will be only when the churches are 
thrown wide open and the people are invited to come in. 
Let those who can give a thousand dollars, or a hundred 
dollars, for the support of the Gospel, give it. Let those 
who can give but a dollar, or a penny, give that. God’s 
blessing sometimes goes with the one penny in more tre¬ 
mendous power than with the ten thousand. 

Away with the encumbrance! We can afford to 
spread the butter a little thinner on the bread, or to w T ear 
our old overcoat one winter longer, if we can get this 
cause to prosper. Our wives and daughters will post¬ 
pone the new dress a little longer, for she who was last 
at the cross and first at the sepulchre will not let Jesus 
go a-begging now. 

Lift up your hands solemnly, and swear by Him that 
liveth forever and forever that this Church, which at¬ 
tempts to preach a free Gospel—this Church, which is at 
war with all sectarianism (and you know that this morn¬ 
ing, under Dr. Tyng’s magnificent sermon, under the 
blast of that great trumpet, the wall of bigotry fell flat 
down)—a Church whose chief object is to save men for 
time and to save them for eternity—that such a Church 
shall not fail if you can help it. 

Oh that the doings of this day may bring courage into 
hundreds of churches in the different cities of our coun¬ 
try, that are now watching with great anxiety the success 
of our experiment; and so all heaven will break forth 
into singing, and the gates of hell wfill tremble ! 

[At the close of this sermon the entire floating debt 
of $21,000 was swept off.] 


THE RESURRECTION. 


221 


THE RESURRECTION. 

“ The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear 
his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good unto the resur¬ 
rection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of dam¬ 
nation.”-*- John v., 28. 

P HILOSOPHIC speculation lias gone through heav¬ 
en, and told us that there is no gold there; and 
through hell, and told us that there is no fire there ; and 
through Christ, and told us that there is no God there; 
and through the grave, and told us that there is no resur¬ 
rection ; and has left hanging^over all the future one 
great, thick London fog. 

If I were to call on you to give the names of the 
world’s great conquerors, you would say, Csesar, Alexan¬ 
der, Philip, and the First Napoleon. You have missed 
the greatest. The men whose names have just been 
mentioned were not worthy of the name of corporal 
when compared with him. He rode on the black horse 
that crossed the fields of Waterloo and Atlanta, and his 
bloody hoofs have been set on the crushed hearts of the 
race. He has conquered every land and besieged every 
city; and to-day, Paris, London, St. Petersburg, New 
York, and Brooklyn are going down under his fierce 
and long-continued assault. 

That conqueror is Death* He carries a black flag 
and takes no prisoners. He digs a trench across the 
hemispheres and fills it with carcasses. Had not God 
kept creating new men, the world, fifty times over, would 


222 


THE EES UERECTIOK 


have swung lifeless through the air; not a foot stirring 
in the cities, not a heart beating—a depopulated world 
—a ship without a helmsman at the wheel, or a captain 
on deck, or crew in the rigging. Herod of old slew only 
those of two years old and under, but this monster strikes 
all ages. Genghis Khan sent five millions into the dust; 
but this, hundreds of thousands of millions. Other kings 
sometimes fall back and 'surrender territory once gain¬ 
ed; but this king has kept all he won, save Lazarus and 
Christ. The last one escaped by Omnipotent power, 
while Lazarus was again captured and w r ent into the dust. 
What a cruel conqueror! What a bloody king ! His 
palace is a huge sepulchre; his flowers the faded gar¬ 
lands that lie on coffin-lids; his music the cry of desola¬ 
ted households; the chalice of his banquet a skull; his 
pleasure : fountains the falling tears of a world. 

But that throne shall come down; that sceptre shall 
break; that palace shall fall under bombardment. “For 
the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves 
shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have 
done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that 
have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” 

Heathen philosophers guessed at the immortality of 
the soul, but never dreamed that the body would get up 
and join it. This idea is exclusively scriptural, and be¬ 
yond reasoning. Indeed, all analogies fail. You say, as 
the w T heat is put into the ground and comes up, so wfill 
our bodies. I reply, if the wheat entirely dies, as in the 
case of long-protracted wet weather, there is no resur¬ 
rection of it. So the analogy fails. You say that the 
caterpillar becomes the butterfly, and so our dead bodies 
may at last take on a splendid exaltation. I reply that 


THE RESURRECTION. 


223 


there is no interregnum of life between the caterpillar 
and the butterfly; and, therefore, the analogy fails. You 
say that there is a perfect type of the resurrection in the 
trees in spring-time. I reply that the tree does not die 
in winter. It is simply dormant; and, therefore, the 
analogy fails. The body, though cut up by dissecting- 
knives, and burned in a furnace, shall come together. 

There must forever be mysteries about this, and the 
mystery increases as science progresses. We find that 
comparatively a small part of the body is reduced to 
dust. . There is very little earthy substance in it. It is 
largely composed of fluids and gases, which evaporate or 
separate themselves, leaving but very little for the dust, 
so that the body becomes widely scattered through earth 
and air; and how it can be reorganized is a question be¬ 
fore which the chemist stands confounded. 

But while there are in this theory of the resurrection 
many things above reasoning, there is nothing contrary 
to reason. The objectors say that the body is scattered 
to such a great distance it can never be gathered. 

A man went into the Mexican War and lost a foot, 
lie comes to Hew York, and by accident loses a finger, 
lie afterward goes as a missionary to China, and there 
dies, Will the foot come from Mexico, and the finger 
from Hew York, and join the body in China % I answer, 
it is no harder for God to do that than to do things he 
has already done. Your body is already made up from 
all the zones of the earth—made up from the raisins of 
Italy, from the bananas of Florida, from the birds of the 
prairie, and from the sugar of the far South; made up 
from Russia, Brazil, and Oregon. Fruits and plants from 
all these localities have become a part of your body. 


224 


THE RESURRECTION. 


The objector says, Suppose a man be eaten up by can¬ 
nibals, how can his body be brought back ? I answer, 
there is no proof that the earthy part of the human body 
ever can be absorbed in another body. I suppose God 
has power to keep these bodies everlastingly distinct. 
But suppose that a part of the body was absorbed in an¬ 
other body—could not God make a substitute for the 
part that had been absorbed in another body ? The res¬ 
urrected part of a good man would rather have a substi¬ 
tuted portion of body given it than that part of the body 
which a cannibal had eaten and digested. 

But the objectors say that a man’s body entirely 
changes every seven or ten years, so that a man at sev¬ 
enty years of age has had seven distinct bodies! At the 
last day, this idea would imply that the man should have 
seven heads, and fourteen feet, and other parts of the 
body, corresponding! But we answer that the Bible dis¬ 
tinctly states that it is the body that goes down into the 
grave that will come up again, and not those portions 
that for many years were being sloughed olf. 

• But come, let us get out of this. I stood on the top 
of the Catskills one bright morning. On the top of the 
mountain was a crown of flashing gold, while all beneath 
was rolling, writhing, contorted cloud. But after a while 
the arrows of light, shot from heaven, began to make the 
glooms of the valley strike tent. The mists went skur- 
rying up and down like horsemen in wild retreat. The 
fogs were lifted, and dashed, and whirled. Then the 
whole valley became one grand illumination; and there 
were horses of fire, and chariots of fire, and thrones of 
fire, and the flapping wings of angels of fire. Gradual¬ 
ly, without sound of trumpet or roll of wheel, they moved 


THE RESURRECTION. 


225 


off. The green Talleys looked up. Then the long flash 
of the Hudson unsheathed itself, and there were the 
white flocks of villages lying amid the rich pastures, 
golden grain-fields, and the soft, radiant cradle of the 
valley, in which a young empire might sleep. 

So there hangs over all the graves, and sepulchres, 
and mausoleums of the ages, a darkness that no earthly 
lamp can lift; but from above the Sun of Righteousness 
shines, and the dense fogs of skepticism having lifted, 
the valleys of the dead stand in the full gush of the 
morning of the resurrection. 

Various scriptural accounts say that the work of grave¬ 
breaking will begin with the blast of trumpets and shout¬ 
ings ; whence I take it that the first intimation of the 
day will be a sound from heaven such as has never be¬ 
fore been heard. It may not be so very loud,‘but it will 
be penetrating. There are mausoleums so deep that un¬ 
disturbed silence has slept there ever since the day when 
the sleepers were left in them. The great noise shall 
strike through them. Among the corals of the sea, miles 
deep, where the shipwrecked rest, the sound will strike. . 
No one will mistake it for thunder, or the blast of earth¬ 
ly minstrelsy. There will be heard the voice of the un¬ 
counted millions of the dead, who come rushing out of 
the gates of eternity, flying toward the tomb, crying, 

“ Make way! Oh grave, give us back our body! We 
gave it to you in corruption; surrender it now in incor¬ 
ruption.” Thousands of spirits arising from the field of 
Waterloo, and from among the rocks of Gettysburg, and 
from among the passes of South Mountain. A hundred 
thousand are crowding Greenwood. On this grave three 
spirits meet, for there were three bodies in that tomb; 
K 2 


226 


THE RESURRECTION. 


over that family vault twenty spirits hover, for there were 
twenty bodies. From New York to Liverpool, at every 
few miles on the sea route, a group of hundreds of spir¬ 
its coming down to the water to meet their bodies. See 
that multitude ! — that is where the Central America 
sank. And yonder multitude!—that is where the Pa¬ 
cific went down. Found at last! That is where the 
City of Boston sank. And yonder the President went 
down. A solitary spirit alights on yonder prairie—that 
is "where a traveler perished in the snow. The whole 
air is full of spirits—spirits flying north, spirits flying 
south, spirits flying east, spirits flying west. Crash! goes 
Westminster Abbey, as all its dead kings, and orators, 
and poets get up. Strange commingling of spirits search¬ 
ing among the ruins. William Wilberforce, the good; 
and Queen Elizabeth, the bad. Crash! go the Pyramids, 
and the monarchs of Egypt rise out of the heart of the 
desert. Snap! go the iron gates of the modern vaults. 
The country grave-yard will look like a rough-plowed 
field as the mounds break open. All the kings of the 
earth; all the senators; all the great men; all the beg¬ 
gars ; all the armies — victors and vanquished; all the 
ages—barbaric and civilized; all those who were chop¬ 
ped by guillotine, or simmered in the fire, or rotted in 
dungeons; all the infants of a day; all the octogenarians 
— all! all! Not one straggler left behind. All! all! 
And now the air is darkened with the fragments of bod¬ 
ies that are coming together from the opposite corners 
of the earth. Lost limbs finding their mate-—bone to 
bone, sinew to sinew—until every joint is reconstructed, 
and every arm finds its socket, and the amputated limb 
of the surgeon’s table shall be set again at the point from 


THE RESURRECTION. 


227 


which it was severed. A surgeon told me that after the 
battle of Bull Run he amputated limbs, throwing them 
out of the window, until the pile reached up to the win¬ 
dow-sill. All those fragments will have to take their 
places. Those who were born blind shall have eyes di¬ 
vinely kindled; those who were lame shall have a limb 
substituted. In all the hosts of the resurrected not one 
eye missing; not one foot clogged; not one arm palsied; 
not one tongue dumb; not one ear deaf. 

But how will these bodies look ? The bodies of the 
righteous, in the first place, will be glorious. The most 
perfectly - formed body, indeed, is a . mere skeleton to 
what i-t would have been had not sin came. God’s 
model of a; face, of a hand, of a foot, of a body, we 
know not. If, after an exquisite statue has been finish¬ 
ed, you should take a chisel and clip it, and clip it, and 
set the statue in an out - of - door exposure, its beauty 
would nearly all be gone. Yet the human body has 
been clipped, and blasted, and battered for thousands of 
years. Physical defects have been handed down from 
generation to generation for six thousand years, and we 
have inherited all the bodily infelicities of all the past. 
But when God takes the righteous out of their graves, 
he will refashion, and improve, and adorn according to 
the original model, until the difference between a gym¬ 
nast and the emaciated wretch in the lazaretto is not so 
great as that between our present bodily structures and 
our gloriously resurrected forms. There you will see 
the perfected eye, out of which, by the waters of death, 
has been washed the last trace of tears and study. Then 
you will see the perfected hand — the knots on the 
knuckles of toil untied. No more stoop of the shoul- 


228 


THE RESURRECTION. 


ders from burden-bearing and the weight of years; but 
all of us erect, elastic—the life of God in all the frame. 
The most striking and impressive thing on earth now’ is 
a human face. Yet it is veiled in the black veil of a 
thousand griefs. But when God, on the resurrection 
morn, shall put aside the veil, I suppose that the face of 
the sun in the sky is dull and stupid compared with the 
outflaming glories of the countenances of the saved. I 
suppose that when those faces shall turn to look toward 
the gate or up toward the throne, it will be like the dawn 
of a new morning on the bosom of everlasting day. 

The body will be immortal. The physical system is 
perpetually wasting away. It is only because we keep 
putting in the fuel that the furnace does not go entirely 
out. Blood-vessels are only canals to carry breadstuffs 
to the different parts. If these supplies fail, we die. 
Sickness and death lurk around to see if they can not 
get a pry under the tenement, and at a slight push we 
tumble off the embankment of the grave. But the 
righteous, arisen, shall have an immortal body. It will 
be incapable of disease. You will hear no cough or 
groan. There will be no miasma or fever in the air. 
There will be no rough steep down which to fall, no 
fracturing a limb. People cross the sea for their health; 
but that voyage over the sea of death will cure the last 
Christian invalid. There grows an herb on that hill 
that will cure the last snake-bite of earthly poison. No 
hospital there, no dispensary, no medicines, no ambu¬ 
lances, no invalid chair, no crutches, no emaciation, no 
spectacles for poor sight, no listing of windows to keep 
out the cold blasts, but health immortal for the resurrect¬ 
ed bodies of the righteous. 


THE RESURRECTION. 


229 


Again : The body will be powerful. Walking ten or 
fifteen miles, we are weary. Lifting a few hundred 
pounds makes us pant. Unarmed, meeting a wild beast, 
we must climb, run, dodge, or somehow get out of the 
way. Eight hours’ work makes any man tired. But 
the resurrected body shall be mighty. God always w T ill 
have great projects to carry on, and will want the right¬ 
eous to help. We know not what journeys the resur¬ 
rected may have to take, or what heavenly enterprises 
they may have to carry on. I suppose the heavenly city 
is more busy than any earthly city, and that Broadway 
at noonday is quiet compared with the business of heav¬ 
en. Yea, it is noonday all the time, and all heaven is 
coming and going. They rest not day nor night, in the 
lazy sense of resting. They have so many victories to 
celebrate! so many songs to sing! so many high days to 
keep! They need no night, for their eyes are never 
weary. They need no sleep, for there is no call for 
physical renovation. If they sit down under the tree of 
life, it is not to rest, but with some resurrected soul of 
earth to talk over old times, and rehearse the battles in 
which they fought shoulder to shoulder. Jacob wrestled 
with the angel, but was not thrown, because the angel 
favored him; but Jacob once resurrected, an angel could 
not throw him. There would be no such thing as wrest¬ 
ling down the giants of heaven. They are strong, sup¬ 
ple, unconquerable, immortal athletes. 

That kind of a body I want. . There is so much of 
work to be done that I now begrudge the hours for sleep 
and necessary recreation. I sometimes have such views 
of the glorious work of preaching the Gospel that I wish 
that from the first day of January to the last day of De- 


230 


THE BES URRECTION. 


cember, without pausing for food, or sleep, or rest, I 
could tell men of Christ and heaven. Thanks be to God 
for the prospect of a resurrected body that shall never 
weary, and for a service of love and activity that shall 
never pause and never end. 

Oh glorious day of resurrection! Gladly will I fling 
into the grave this poor, sinful frame, if at Thy call I 
may rise up wdth a body tireless, and pure, and glorious, 
and immortal! That was a blessed resurrection-hymn 
sung at my father’s burial: 

“ So Jesus slept—God’s dying Son ; 

Passed through the grave, and bless’d the bed. 

Rest here, bless’d saint, till from his throne 
The morning break and pierce the shade.” 

But my text speaks of the resurrection of damnation. 
The Bible says but little about it; yet it is probable that 
as the wicked are, in the last day, to be opposite in char¬ 
acter, so will they be, in many respects, opposite in body. 
Are the bodies of the righteous glorious—those of the 
wicked will be repelling. You know how bad passions 
flatten the skull and disfigure the body. There he 
comes! up out of the grave-yard—the drunkard; the 
blotches on his body flaming out in worse disfigurement, 
and his tongue bitten by an all-consuming thirst for 
drink—which he can not get, for there are no dram¬ 
shops in hell. There comes up the lascivious and un¬ 
clean wretch, reeking with filth that made him the hor¬ 
ror of the city hospital, now wriggling across the ceme¬ 
tery lots—the consternation of devils. Here are all the 
faces of the unpardoned dead. The last line of attrac¬ 
tiveness is dashed out, and the eye is wild, malignant, 
fierce, infernal; the cheek a-flame; the mouth distorted 


THE RESURRECTION. 


231 


with blasphemies. If the glance of the faces of the 
righteous was like a new morning, the glance of the 
faces of the lost will be like another night falling on 
midnight. If, after the close of a night’s debauch, a 
man gets up and sits on the side of the bed— sick, ex¬ 
hausted, and horrified with a review of his past; or rouses 
up in delirium tremens, and sees serpents crawling over 
him or devils dancing about him—what will be the feel¬ 
ing of a man who gets up -out of his bed on the last 
morning of earth, and reviews an unpardoned past, and, 
instead of imaginary evils crawling over him and flitting 
before him, finds the real frights, and pains, and woes of 
the resurrection of damnation ? 

Between these two styles of rising, choose ye. I set 
before you, in God’s name, two resurrected bodies. The 
one radiant, glorious, Christ-like; the other worn, blast¬ 
ed, infernal. I commend you to the Lord of the resur¬ 
rection. Confiding in him, Death will be to you only 
the black servant that opens the door, and the grave will 
be to you only the toilet-room where you dress for glory. 

May the God of Peace, who brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, 
through the blood of the Everlasting Covenant, make us 
perfect in every good work to do his will! 


232 


TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE FOR 


TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE FOR TRAINING 
* CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN. 

“Would God that all the people were prophets .”—Numbers xi., 29. 

HERE is great excitement in the ancient tabernacle. 



Two good men, by the name of Eldad and Medad, 
begin to pray, and to preach, and to instruct. Not hav¬ 
ing been regularly ordained to the work, the jealousy of 
“ the regulars” in the service is aroused, and they come 
to Moses, asking that these unordained men be silenced. 
But Moses, instead of stopping them, says he wishes that 
all the people would go to preaching, and praying, and 
exhorting. “ Would God that all the people were proph¬ 


ets !” 


“Amen !” I say, with as much emphasis as you ever 
heard in an old-fashioned Methodist prayer-meeting. We 
want men who have had opportunity of most thorough 
and elaborate culture in theological seminaries, and who 
have been set apart by the laying on of hands for special 
work which they, and only they, are competent to do. 
But until the right and the duty of all private Christian 
men and women to work for Christ, in any way they 
think they can serve him best, is acknowledged, the 
Church of God will fail to perform its mission, and the 
forces of sin will discomfit the forces of righteousness. 
God has promised victory to the Church of God, but not 
as long as out of five hundred troops four hundred and 
ninety-nine refuse to shoulder the musket and fill the 
canteen. 


TRAINING CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN. 233 

I suppose that every man has some controlling ideas 
in his life. Long ago, and before I saw any possibility 
of carrying them out, I had born of God in my soul these 
two desires: First,-the establishment of a free church 
with the liome-feeling maintained; and, second, the es¬ 
tablishment of a college in which private Christian men 
and women might be trained for usefulness. If God will 
grant me to see these two things done, and well done, I 
think that then I would like to go up and rest with him 
who is more than all the universe to me. The first plan 
we have lived to see fully developed, and the second 
now starts under auspices and a patronage of talent and 
piety that must command the respect and confidence of 
the whole country. But the two ideas are one. First 
establish a free church in which to have the people 
saved, and then establish a college where they may be 
qualified for usefulness. 

The need of such a college is felt to-day throughout 
the whole Christian world. We have many of the lead¬ 
ing men of all denominations in our professorate. If 
there is any thing at all in learned titles, we have the ad¬ 
vantage of it in our college circular. The printer failed 
to get our circular done as soon as expected, because, as 
he said, he ran out of “ D.’s,” and had to go to a neigh¬ 
boring printing-office to borrow a new supply of that let¬ 
ter. But what is human confirmation compared with 
that which comes from God through his Church, his 
Providence, and his Word ? 

Ministers can not do the worJc of the world’s evangel¬ 
ization. What are the few thousand ministers in this 
country compared to the thirty millions of the popula¬ 
tion ! We are numerically too small. You might as 


234 


TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE FOR 


well have sent ten brigadier generals without any troops 
to conquer the Southern Confederacy. Leaving their 
swords at home, they would have conquered you with 
their penknives. Sin, with its army .of drunkenness, and 
lust, and crime, has not yet put out half of its strength, 
for it can beat us, and not half try. Who is getting the 
victory in our cities to-day—sobriety or intemperance ? 
Honesty or fraud ? Purity or uncleanness ? Infidelity 
or the Gospel ? Light or darkness ? Heaven or hell ? 
If you are an honest man, you confess that the latter 
have gained the victory. What is the matter ? Are the 
Gospel weapons insufficient ? Is the sword of the Spirit 
dull? Are the great howitzers of truth at too short 
range to throw the bombshells into the enemy’s fortress ? 
Ho, no! The great want, and the only want, is more 
troojps ! Instead of five or ten thousand ministers, we 
want two million men and women, sworn that they will 
neither eat nor sleep until they have slain iniquity. But 
how if you can not get them? Suppose, after a long 
war, the President should make proclamation for one 
hundred thousand men, and they were not to be had ? 
But the Church has not sent a thousandth part of its 
strength, and the troops are encamping by the still wa¬ 
ters of Zion, when they ought to be at the front, and 
would be if you gave them a chance, and made them 
ready for the heat and terror of the contest. 

Ministers are numerically too small. They do the 
best they can. They are the most overworked class on 
earth. Many of them die of dyspepsia because they can 
not get the right kind of food to eat, or, getting the right 
kind, are so hurried that they take it down in chunks. 
They die from consumption, coming from early and late 


TRAINING CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN 235 

exposure. If a novelist or a historian publishes one book 
a year, he is considered industrious; but every faithful 
pastor must originate enough thought for three or four 
volumes every year. Ministers receive enough calls in a 
year from men who have maps, and medicines, and light¬ 
ning-rods, and pictures to sell, to exhaust their vitality. 
They are bored with agents of all sorts. They are stood 
in draughts at funerals, and poisoned by the unventilated 
rooms of invalids, and waited upon by committees who 
want addresses made, until life becomes a burden to hear. 
It is not hard study that makes ministers look pale. It 
is the infinity of interruptions and botherations to which 
they are subjected. If I die before my time, it will be 
at the hand of committees that want an address or a 
lecture. A man just called on me to give him a lecture 
by which he might pay the expenses of his wedding-trip. 
Sometimes, after I have been working for weeks from 
six o’clock in the morning until eleven o’clock at night, 
I have heard of some hypochondriac with a run-around 
or a hang-nail who threatened to leave the Church if I 
did not pay him more attention. If there were fifty 
hours in each day of the year, and I worked forty of 
them, I could not do the work of this one parish ; and I 
am not behind most clergymen in disposition to toil. 

Numerically too small. It is no more the work of 
the pulpit to convert and save the world than it is the 
work of the pew. If men go to ruin, there will be as 
much blood on your skirts as on mine. 

Let us quit this grand farce of trying to save the world 
by a few clergymen, and let all hands lay hold of the 
work. Give us in all our churches two or three hun¬ 
dred aroused and qualified men and women to help. 


236 


TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE FOR 


In most churches to-day, five or ten men are compelled 
to do all the work. A vast majority of churches are at 
their wit’s end how to carry on a prayer-meeting if the 
minister is not there, when there ought to be enough 
pent-up energy and religious fire to make a meeting go 
on with such power th&t the minister would never be 
missed. The Church stands working the pumps of a 
few ministerial cisterns until the buckets are dry and 
choked, while there are thousands of fountains from 
which might be dipped up the waters of eternal life. 

Now there may be ministers who will disapprove of 
this movement for qualifying lay-workers—jealous lest 
their official prerogatives be interfered with. But I be¬ 
lieve the great .cry of the overtasked clergy of the Amer¬ 
ican Church to-day is, “Would God that all the people 
were prophets!” 

We need this college to make practical men and wom¬ 
en. We, the clergy, generally go from our mothers’ 
apron-strings to school; from school to college; from 
college to theological seminary; and, graduating, we 
stand on the corner of the pulpit with our sermon in our 
hand, “ shivering on the brink, and fear to launch away.” 
What do we know of the world? The world is on its 
guard in our presence, and does not appear in its true 
character. Before our professional look and dress, men 
shrink within themselves. Long ago I dropped the min¬ 
isterial dress, because men seemed to feel bound to talk 
piously in my presence, especially if they were half 
drunk. 

Now from this college we hope to turn upon society a 
company of Christian men and women who have for 
ten, twenty, and thirty years been down in the world, 


TRAINING CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN 


237 

and who know all its ins and outs. Great work will be 
done when we send Christian merchants to carry the 
Gospel on ’Change, and into all the life of barter. 

Religion will make headway in hat factories when 
you can send there, baptized by the Spirit, a Christian 
hatter. We want men in all the occupations, in the 
name of God, to throttle the sins of their own trade. 
Religion will never conquer the plumber’s shop, or the 
mason’s wall, or the carpenter’s scaffolding, or the tin¬ 
ner’s roof, or the printer’s type-room, until converted 
plumbers, and masons, and carpenters, and printers car¬ 
ry it there. Some men are so profound in their educa¬ 
tion they do not seem qualified for this mission. You 
can not send the Great Eastern up the Penobscot River. 
Profoundly educated men seem to “ draw too much wa¬ 
ter” to get up such a stream. I have heard finely edu¬ 
cated men in prayer-meeting talk in sentences of Mil¬ 
tonic affluence, yet their words fell dead upon the meet¬ 
ing; but when some poor, uneducated man arose, and 
said, “ I suppose you fellers think that because I don’t 
know any thing I haven’t no right to speak; but Christ 
has converted my soul, and you know I was the misera- 
blest chap in town; and if God will pardon me, he will 
pardon you. Come to Jesus! Come now!”—the pray¬ 
er-meeting broke down with religious emotion. It is a 
grand thing to be accurate in speech; but get out with 
your grammar if you are going to let the lack of ac¬ 
quaintance therewith keep a man down when God Al¬ 
mighty tells him to get up! 

These men do not now feel prepared for Christian 
work. Waking up at thirty, forty, or fifty years of age, 
with a desire of usefulness, they are too old to begin a 


238 TABERNA CLE FREE COLLEGE FOR 

regular theological course. Besides that, they have fami¬ 
lies to support. It takes them eight hours every day to 
earn a livelihood. What knowledge they shoot down 
they must take on the wing, loading the rifle while the 
barrel is yet hot from other discharges. In their un¬ 
drilled state, they rise to talk in prayer-meetings with 
head down and blushing cheek, as though they were talk¬ 
ing by sufferance, instead of remembering that they have 
a message from the throne of the eternal God, and that, 
though men howl with contempt, they must utter it. 
Give these Christian people tw T o winters of practical in¬ 
struction on how to work for Christ, and then the city of 
Brooklyn, from Fulton Ferry to Gowanus, and from the 
East Biver to the chills-and-fever marshes of South 
Bushwick, will feel the throb of their Christian energy. 
If between New York and Brooklyn, at six o’clock in 
the evening, there were no ferriage except by one row¬ 
boat, the accommodation, as compared with the demand 
for transportation, would not be so small as our means 
of getting the race to heaven is small when compared 
with the millions that ought to go there. 

Last winter the Spottswood Hotel in Bichmond burn¬ 
ed. A man in the fourth story swung out of the win¬ 
dow and held on, waiting for the firemen to hoist the 
ladders. A ladder was hoisted, but it did not quite 
reach the man’s feet. He held on for a while, and then 
dropped and perished. There is splendid provision in 
all our churches for the salvation of men, but with the 
Gospel we do not quite 'reach the masses. They swing 
wildly for a while, and then drop off and die. 

In this college we want to teach men common sense 
in religious matters. While a young man was standing 


TRAINING CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN. 239 

amid rollicking companions, full of mirth and repartee, 
a good Christian man came and asked him, “ What is the 
first step of wisdom ?” The young man turned and said, 
The first step of wisdom is for every one to mind his 
own business!” A coarse answer; but it was a very 
abrupt question, considering the place in which it was 
put. There are religious peddlers who go around mak¬ 
ing a business of displaying their whole stock of wares 
in the most obtrusive manner. It is no time, while an 
accountant is puzzling his brain with a long line of fig¬ 
ures, to ask him “how his account stands with God;” or 
stop the sportsman on the playground, while running be¬ 
tween the hunks, and ask “ whether, in a religious sense, 
he is running the race set before him.” We want tact 
and adaptation for this work. Some Christians try to 
catch a whale with a fly-rod of hornbeam, and fling a 
harpoon at a salmon. 

IIow few laymen dare to grapple a sharp infidel! A 
wily unbeliever would take many a Christian and twist 
him around his little finger, or hook him to death with 
the horns of a dilemma, or batter his life out with the 
ninth chapter of Romans. Can it be that our religion is 
such a weak, beggarly, unreasonable, pusillanimous thing, 
that at the first assault it should run like the Northern 
troops at Big Bethel % 

We want private Christians to know how they may 
stand their ground, or go forth with the vehemence of 
the Bible-dwarf when he accosted the giant, saying, 
“ Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, 
and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of 
the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom 
thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee 


240 


TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE FOR 


into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine 
head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host 
of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and 
to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may 
know that there is a God in Israel.” Let me get my 
sling out! Three times I swing it around my head, and 
down thou goest, oh giant! 

The Church of God has been making “masterly re¬ 
treats” long enough; and the Captain of our salvation 
cries to the armed battalions of the Church, “Forward, 

THE WHOLE LINE !” 

We want this institution to qualify people to work 
amid the wretchedness and crime of the .great cities. Is 
any Christian man so deluded as to think that we can 
overcome these evils by our present way of doing things ? 
Where there is one church built there are ten grog-shops 
established. Where one sermon on purity is preached 
there are five houses of shame built. The Church lias 
not touched the great evils save with her little finger. 
The whole country is aroused for the trial of five or ten 
New York municipal scoundrels, while against the influ¬ 
ences that make such men possible how little effort! 

In this college, under the control of the most eminent 
philanthropists, on whose heads have come down enough 
blessings to make a heaven out of, the people will have 
an opportunity of knowing what are the desolations of 
our great towns; and how the hard, cold, filthy pavement, 
beaten by the feet of sin and woe, may be gladdened by 
the feet of Him who bringeth good tidings. At the ratio 
at which crime and sin have increased in New York in 
the last ten years, in one hundred years there will not be 
a church left, and the city will be one great Blackwell’s 
Island. 


TRAINING CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN 241 

Before you and I liave the sod pressing our eyelids, we 
will, under God, decide whether our children shall grow 
up amid the accursed surroundings of vice and shame, or 
come to an inheritance of righteousness. Long, loud, 
bitter will be the curse that scorches our grave if, hold¬ 
ing within the Church to-day enough men and women 
to save the city, we act the coward or the drone. I wish 
that I could put enough moral glycerine under the con¬ 
ventionalities and majestic stupidities of the day to blow 
them to atoms, and that then, with fifty thousand men 
and women from all the churches, knowing nothing but 
Christ and a desire to bring all the world to him, we 
might move upon the enemy’s works. For a little while, 
heaven would not have trumpets enough to celebrate the 
victory! 

"We want also to qualify men for street-preaching. 
There are hundreds of thousands of men who will never 
come to church. The only kind of pulpit that will reach 
them is a dry-goods box or a drayman’s cart at the street 
corner. We want hundreds of men every Sabbath to be 
preaching the Gospel in our great city parks. There are, 
in this house to-day, two hundred men that ought to be 
preaching. Under the control of this college, they might 
get the courage and the facility. “What!” you ask, 
“would you let them preach without ordination?” I 
answer, If Conferences and Presbyteries will not put 
their hands upon your head, then I would have you or¬ 
dained in another way. I would take you down into the 
haunts of suffering and crime within ten minutes’ walk 
of our best churches, and there have you tell the story of 
Christ, until men, redeemed from their cups, and women, 
elevated from a life of pollution, and children, whose 
L 


242 


TABERNACLE FREE COLLEGE FOR 


bare, bleeding feet are on the road to death, should be 
by your instrumentality saved. Then I would have these 
converted suffering ones put their hands of ordination on 
your head, setting you apart for the holy ministry in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. Ah! that would be an ordination as good as the 
laying on of hands by Conferences and Synods—an or¬ 
dination that would be most bright in the day when, 

“ Shriveled like a parched scroll, 

The flaming heavens together roll.'’ 

Do you tell me Ifarlan Page had no right to preach 
when he stood in the Fourteenth Ward of Hew York, 
amid scoffs and insults, telling the passers-by what good 
things Christ had done for them, and bringing hundreds 
to God, until, on his death-pillow, he cried out, “Lord 
Jesus, come quickly! Why wait thy chariot wheels so 
long ?” Had General Havelock no right to preach when, 
in a heathen temple in India, he placed candles in the 
hands of the gods around about the room, and by that 
light read the Hew Testament, and exhorted his troops 
to flee to the stronghold of the Gospel ? “ Go pkeach 
my Gospel,” God thunders in your ears to-day; and woe 
is unto you if you do not preach it. “Hot ready!” 
Then come here to this college and get ready. Ho ex¬ 
cuse will be left you that will not seem a mockery in 
your death-hour, and a ghastly condemnation in the 
judgment. 

To-day the Tabernacle Free College for training Chris¬ 
tian men and women for practical work is launched upon 
the deep. My Christian friends, an opportunity is of¬ 
fered you grander than has ever been offered to the 
masses of the people at any time since Christ came or 
the world began. 


TRAINING CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN. 243 

In this college yon may be prepared to work as Bible- 
readers, as tract distributors, as prayer-meeting exhorters, 
as street-preachers, as Sabbath-school teachers, and for 
all the fields of Christian work. An opportunity is of¬ 
fered you, for the lack of which hundreds of thousands 
of Christians have lived uselessly, and died with their 
work undone. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of 
the thousand Christians here to-day, many a time, have 
said that they wished they were qualified for usefulness. 
Now you have the opportunity, let every one take it. 

Let the aged come in and seek new qualifications. I 
know it is almost sundown with many of you, but there 
are a few sheaves yet that may be gathered. God would 
have taken you home if your work had all been done. 
Let these middle-aged Christians, who have been gunning 
with old blunderbusses, come and get the rifle of a sharp¬ 
shooter. Ye who have been hewing away with dull axes, 
come here and put them on the grindstone in this col¬ 
lege. Sere have your questions answered, your doubts 
removed, your faculties developed, your heart fired. I 
wish that the membership of this Church and of scores 
of other churches would, aware of this, the rarest op¬ 
portunity ever offered, march into the college in solid 
column. 

Through the newspaper press, that stenographically 
take these words, I call upon this great cluster of cities, 
New York, Newark, Jersey City, and Brooklyn, and the 
surrounding villages, to send to this institution their best 
men and women, that they may here, under some of the 
first teachers of the day, get qualified for glorious use¬ 
fulness. 

All sects of Christians, under the chief men of the 


244 TABERNA CLE FREE COLLEGE\ ETC. 

different denominations, will here be taught to go shoul¬ 
der to shoulder; and the Baptist will, for the time, forget 
his immersion, and the Episcopalian his Liturgy, and the 
Methodist his anxious-seat, and the Presbyterian his West¬ 
minster Assembly, while all together will lift the one bat¬ 
tle-shout of “ Jesus forever !” On his brow be all the 
garlands; at his feet cast down all the crowns; in his 
ear pour all the doxologies. Hallelujah! amen! Hal¬ 
lelujah ! amen! 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


245 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN’S CALL. 

“So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him,What meanest 
thou, 0 sleeper ? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think 
upon us, that we perish not .”—Jonah i., 6. 

G OD told Jonah to go to Nineveh on an unpleasant 
errand. Lie would not go. He thought to get 
away from his duty by putting to sea. With pack un¬ 
der his arm, I find him on his way to Joppa, a sea-port. 
He goes down among the shipping, and says to the men 
lying around on the docks, “Which of these vessels sails 
to-day ?” The sailors answer, “ Yonder is a vessel going 
to Tarshish. I think, if you hurry, you may get on board 
her.” Jonah steps on board the rough craft, asks how 
much the fare is, and pays it. Anchor is weighed, sails 
are hoisted, and the rigging begins to rattle in the strong 
breeze of the Mediterranean. Joppa is an exposed har¬ 
bor, and it does not take long for the vessel to get out on 
the broad sea. The sailors like what they call a “ spank¬ 
ing breeze,” and the plunge of the vessel from the crest 
of a tall wave is exhilarating to those at home on the 
deep. But the strong breeze becomes a gale, the gale a 
hurricane. The affrighted passengers ask the captain if 
he ever saw any thing like this before. “ Oh yes,” he 
says; u this is nothing.” Mariners are slow to admit 
danger to landsmen. But, after a while, crash goes the 
mast, and the vessel pitches so far “ a-beams-end” there 
is a fear she will not be righted. The captain answers 


246 TEE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 

few questions, and orders the throwing out of boxes and 
bundles, and of so much of the cargo as they can get at. 
The captain at last confesses there is but little hope, and 
tells the passengers that they had better go to praying. 
It is seldom that a sea-captain is an Atheist. He knows 
that there is a God, for he has seen him at every point 
of latitude between Sandy Hook and Queenstown. Cap¬ 
tain Moody, commanding the Cuba, of the Cunard line, 
at Sunday service led the music and sang like a Metho¬ 
dist. The captain of this Mediterranean craft, having 
set the passengers to praying, goes around examining the 
vessel at every point. He descends into the cabin to see 
whether, in the strong wrestling of the waves, the vessel 
has sprung aleak, and he finds Jonah asleep. Jonah had 
had a wearisome tramp, and had spent many sleepless 
nights about questions of duty, and he is so sound asleep 
that all the thunder of the storm and the screaming of 
the passengers does not disturb him. The captain lays 
hold of him, and begins to shake him out of his uncon¬ 
sciousness* with the cry, “ Don’t you see that we are all 
going to the bottom? Wake up, and go to praying, if 
you have any God to go to. What meanest thou, O sleep¬ 
er? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will 
think upon us, that we perish not.” The rest of the story 
I will not rehearse, for you know it well. To appease 
the sea, they threw Jonah overboard. 

Learn that the devil takes a marts money and then 
sets him down in a jpoor landing-place . The Bible says 
he paid his fare to Tarshish. But see him get out. The 
sailors bring him to the side of the ship, lift him over 
“ the guards,” and let him drop with a loud splash into 
the waves. He paid his fare all the way to Tarshish, but 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


247 


did not get the worth of his money. Neither does any 
one who turns his back on his duty and does that which 
is not right. 

There is a young man who, during the past year, has 
spent a large part of his salary in carousal. What has 
he gained by it? A soiled reputation, a half-starved 
purse, a dissipated look, a petulant temper, a disturbed 
conscience. The manacles of one or two bad habits that 
are pressing tighter and tighter will keep on until they 
wear to the bone. You paid your fare to Tarshish, but 
you have been set down in the midst of a sea of disquie¬ 
tude and perplexity. 

One hundred dollars for Sunday liorse-hire! 

One hundred dollars for wine-suppers! 

One hundred dollars for cigars! 

One hundred dollars for frolics that shall be nameless! 

Making four hundred dollars for his damnation! 

Instead of being in Tarshish to-night, he is in the mid¬ 
dle of the Mediterranean. 

Here is a literary man, tired of the faith of his fathers, 
who resolves to launch out into what is called Free-think¬ 
ing. He buys Theodore Parker’s works for twelve dol¬ 
lars ; Kenan’s Life of Christ for one dollar ‘and fifty 
ce^ts; Andrew Jackson Davis’s w T orks for twenty dol¬ 
lars. Goes to hear infidels talk at the clubs, and to see 
spiritualism at the table-rapping. Talks glibly of David, 
the Psalmist, as an old libertine; of Paul as a wild en¬ 
thusiast ; and of Christ as a decent kind of a man—a lit¬ 
tle weak in some respects, but almost as good as him¬ 
self. Talks smilingly of Sunday as a good day to put a 
little extra blacking on one’s boots; and of Christians as, 
for the most part, hypocrites; and of eternity as “ the 


248 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


great to be,” “ the everlasting now,” or “ the infinite what 
is it.” Some day he gets his feet very wet, and finds 
himself that night chilly; The next morning has a hot 
mouth, and is headachy. Sends word over to the store 
that he will not be there to-day. Bathes his feet; has 
mustard-plasters; calls the doctor. The medical man 
says aside, “ This is going to be a bad case of congestion 
of the lungs.” Voice fails. Children must be kept down 
stairs, or sent to the neighbors, to keep the house quiet. 
You say, “ Send for the minister.” But no; he does not 
believe in ministers. You say, “ Bead the Bible to him.” 
Bo; he does not believe in the Bible. A lawyer comes 
in, and, sitting by his bedside, writes a document that be¬ 
gins, “Ai the name of God, Amen. I, being of sound 
mind , do make this my last will and testament .” It is 
certain where the sick man’s body will be in less than a 
week. It is quite certain who will get his property. But 
what will become of his soul ? It will go into “ the great 
to be,” or “ the everlasting now,” or “ the infinite what is 
it.” Ilis soul is in deep waters, and the wind is a blow¬ 
ing great guns.” Death cries, “ Overboard with the un¬ 
believer!” A splash! He goes to the bottom. He paid 
five dollars for his ticket to Tarshish when he bought the 
infidel books. He landed in perdition ! 

Every farthing you spend in sin Satan will swindle 
you out of. He promises you shall have thirty per cent, 
or a great dividend. lie lies. He will sink all the cap¬ 
ital. You may pay full fare to some sinful success, but 
you will never get to Tarshish. 

Learn how soundly men will sleep in the midst of 
danger. The worst sinner on shipboard, considering the 
light he had, was Jonah. He was a member of the 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


249 


Church, while they were heathen. The sailors were en¬ 
gaged in their lawful calling, following the sea. The 
merchants on board, I suppose, were going down to Tar- 
shish to barter; but Jonah, notwithstanding his Chris¬ 
tian profession, was flying from duty. He was sound 
asleep in the cabin. He has been motionless for hours 
—his arms and feet in the same posture as when he lay 
down—his breast heaving with deep respiration. Oh! 
how could the sinner sleep! What if the ship struck a 
rock! what if it sprang aleak! what if the clumsy Ori¬ 
ental craft should capsize! What would become of Jo¬ 
nah ? 

So men sleep soundly now amid perils infinite. In 
almost every place, I suppose, the Mediterranean might 
be sounded, but no line is long enough to fathom the pro¬ 
found beneath every impenitent man. Plunging a thou¬ 
sand fathoms down, you can not touch bottom. Eter¬ 
nity beneath him, before him, around him! Rocks close 
by, and whirlpools, and hot - breathed Levanters; yet 
sound asleep! We try to wake him up,but fail. The 
great surges of warning break over the hurricane-deck 
—the gong of warning sounds through the cabin—the 
bell in the wheel-house rings. “Awake!” cry a hun¬ 
dred voices; yet sound asleep in the cabin. 

In the year 1775, the captain of a Greenland whaling 
vessel found himself at night surrounded by icebergs, 
and “ lay to” until morning, expecting every moment to 
be ground to pieces. In the morning he looked about, 
and saw a ship near by. He hailed it. Ho answer. Get¬ 
ting into a boat with some of the crew, he pushed out 
for the mysterious craft. Getting near by, he saw 
through the port-hole a man at a stand, as though keep- 
L 2 


250 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


ing a log-book. . He bailed him. No answer. He went 
on board the vessel, and found the man sitting at the log¬ 
book, frozen to death. The log-book was dated 1762, 
showing that the vessel had been wandering for thirteen 
years among the ice. The sailors were found frozen 
among the hammocks, and others in the cabin. For thir¬ 
teen years this ship had been carrying its burden of 
corpses. 

So from this Gospel craft to-night I descry voyagers 
for eternity. I cry, “ Ship ahoy! ship ahoy !” No an¬ 
swer. They float about, tossed and ground by the ice¬ 
bergs of sin, hoisting no sail for heaven. I go on board. 
I find all asleep. It is a frozen sleep. O that my Lord 
Jesus would come aboard, and lay hold of the wheel, and 
steer the craft down into the warm Gulf Stream of his 
mercy! Awake, thou that sleepest! Arise from the 
dead, and Christ shall give thee life. 

Again: Notice that men are aroused by the most un¬ 
expected means. If Jonah had been told one year be¬ 
fore that a heathen sea-captain would ever awaken him 
to a sense of danger, he would have scoffed at the idea; 
but here it is done. So now, men in strangest ways are 
aroused from spiritual stupor. A profane man is brought 
to conviction by the shocking blasphemy of a comrade. 
A man attending church, and hearing a sermon from 
the text, “ The ox knoweth his owner,” etc., goes home 
unimpressed; but, crossing his barn-yard, an ox comes 
up and licks his hand, and he says, “ There it is now— 
‘ the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib,’ 
but I do not know God.” The careless remark of a 
teamster has led a man to thoughtfulness and heaven. 
The child’s remark, “ Father, they have prayers at uncle’s 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


251 


house—why don’t we have them ?” has brought salvation 
to the dwelling. 

Some man came in here to-night hardly knowing why 
he came. He has heard that Talmage is an odd man, 
and has come to see whether it is true. But before this 
service is done that man will begin to think about his 
soul. He has been npon his last spree. He has made 
his last visit to that bad house. His children will to¬ 
morrow morning notice the change. This moment he 
starts heaveirward; and for all eternity he will bless God 
for this visit to the Brooklyn Tabernacle. 

By strangest way and in most unexpected manner men 
are awakened. The gardener of the Countess of Hunt¬ 
ingdon was convicted of sin by hearing the countess on 
the opposite side of the wall talk about Jesus. John 
Hardoak was aroused by a dream, in which he saw the 
last day, and the Judge sitting, and heard his own name 
called with terrible emphasis: “John Hardoak, come to 
judgment!” The Lord has a thousand ways of waking 
up Jonah. Would that the messengers of mercy might 
this night find their way down into the sides of the ship, 
and that many who are unconsciously rocking in the 
aw T ful tempest of their sin might hear the warning, 
“ What meanest thou, O sleeper ? Arise, and call upon 
thy God!” 

Again: Learn that a man may wake up too • late . If, 
instead of sleeping, Jonah had been on his knees confess¬ 
ing his sins from the time he went on board the craft, I 
think that God would have saved him from being thrown 
overboard. But he woke up too late. The tempest is in 
full blast, and the sea, in convulsion, is lashing itself, and 
nothing will stop it now but the overthrow of Jonah. 


252 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


So men sometimes wake up too late. The last hour 
has come. The man has no more idea of dying than I 
have of dropping down this moment. The rigging is all 
white with the foam of death. How chill the night is! 
“ I must die,” he says, “ yet not ready. I must push out 
upon this awful sea, but have nothing with which to pay 
my fare. The white caps! the darkness! the hurricane! 
How long have I been sleeping? Whole days, and 
months, and years. I am quite awake now. I see every 
thing, but it is too late.” Invisible hands take him up. 
He struggles to get loose. In vain. They bring his soul 
to the verge. They let it down over the side. The 
winds howl. The sea opens its frothing jaws to swal¬ 
low. The lightnings hold their torches at the soul’s 
burial. The thunders toll their bells as he drops. Eter¬ 
nal death catches him. He has gone forever. And 
while the canvas cracked, and the yards rattled, and the 
ropes thumped, the sea took up the funeral dirge, play¬ 
ing, with open diapason of midnight storm, “ Because I 
have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my 
hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught 
all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also 
will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your 
fear cometh.” 

But sometimes men do not wake up even in the last 
hour of life. Men often die in sickness with befogged 
brain, and while the friends stand weeping, the dying 
man looks around and wonders what it all means, or is 
too stupid to notice the weeping. How the pulse of the 
sick man is up to 110! It gets feebler: 90, 80, 60, 50— 
pulse all gone! The gates of the body open, and the 
soul passes out, and, for the first time, wakes up. “What 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


253 


is this?” it cries—“these sounds, these terrors?” Wide 
awake now, bat what is it ? A voice sounds through the 
darkness: “ This is not the Mediterranean on which thou 
sailest, nor the Euroclydon which has come upon thee. 
It is the boundless ocean of Eternity, and this battle of 
wind and wave is an everlasting storm. Yoyagers upon 
this sea sail on forever, yet get to no port. The ship 
that staggers in these troughs of death rises not upon the 
crest save to plunge to deeper depths. The needle of 
the compass points to no star, but winders in the box 
after light, but finding only darkness. They who run 
up the ratlines to reef the sail are frozen fast in the rig¬ 
ging. He who commands this ship hath an iron face, 
and wrings his hands, and wishes they might founder 
and be at rest; and curses the night, and curses the 
wind, and curses the wave. His name is Despair. The 
boatswain’s whistle is a shriek; and as the white-cheeked 
crew lay hold of the ropes and pull altogether, their cry 
is , c Haul away , lads , the harvest is past! Haul away , 
lads, the summer is ended P Ho glimpse of light-house, 
or merry dance of light-ship outside of the harbor. Ho 
star in the black flag above the top-gallants. Taking 
their bearings, they find themselves at infinite distance 
from the shore of earth, and at infinite distance from 
the shore of heaven. The log-book tells of millions of 
miles past, but still voyaging. Ages on ages! Sailing 
on, sailing on! Eternally, eternally! Ho hammock in 
that forecastle in which to rest; no striking of eight 
bells to show that the watch is out. They wake up at 
last—too late forever!” 

How, lest any of you should make this mistake, I ad¬ 
dress you in the words of the Mediterranean sea-captain: 


254 


THE SEA- CAPTAIN'S CALL , 


“ What meanest thou, 0 sleeper ? Arise, call upon thy 
God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish 
not.” If you have a God, you had better call upon him. 
Do you say “ I have no God Then you had better 
call upon your father’s God. When your father was’ in 
trouble, who did he fly to ? You heard him, in his old 
days, tell about some terrible exposure in a snow-storm, 
or at sea, or in battle, or among midnight garroters, and 
how he escaped. Perhaps twenty years before you were 
born, your father made sweet acquaintance with God. 
There is something in the worn pages of the Bible he 
used to read which makes you think your father had a 
God. In the old religious books lying around the house, 
there are passages marked with a lead-pencil—passages 
that make you think your father was not a godless man, 
but that, on that dark day when he lay in the back room 
dying, he was ready—all ready. But perhaps your father 
was a bad man—prayerless, and a blasphemer, and you 
never think of him now without a shudder. He wor¬ 
shiped the world or his own appetites. Do not then, I 
beg of you, call upon your father's God, but call on your 
mother’s God. I think she was good. You remember 
when your father came home drunk late on a cold night, 
how patient your mother was. You often heard her 
pray. She used to sit by the hour meditating, as though 
she w T ere thinking of some good, warm place, where it 
never gets cold, and where the bread does not fail, and 
staggering steps never come. You remember her now, 
as she sat, in cap and spectacles, reading her Bible Sun¬ 
day afternoons. What good advice she used to give 
you! How black and terrible the hole in the ground 
looked to you when, with two ropes, they let her down 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


255 


to rest in the grave-yard ! Ah ! I think from your looks 
that I am on the right track. Awake, O sleeper, and 
call upon thy mother’s God. 

But perhaps both your father and mother were de¬ 
praved. Perhaps your cradle was rocked by sin and 
shame, and it is a wonder that from such a starting you 
have come to respectability. Then don’t call upon the 
God of either of your parents, I beg of you. 

But you have children. You know God kindled those 
bright eyes, and rounded those healthy limbs, and set 
beating within their breast an immortality. Perhaps in 
the belief that somehow it would be for the best, you 
have taught them to say an evening prayer, and when 
they kneel beside you, and fold their little hands, and 
look up, their face all innocence and love, you know that 
there is a God somewhere about in the room. 

I think I am on the right track at last. Awake, O 
sleeper, and call upon the God of thy children. May 
he set these little ones to pulling at thy heart until they 
charm thee to the same God to whom to-night they have 
said their little prayer! 

But, alas! alas! some of these men and women are 
unmoved by the fact that their father had a God, that 
their mother had a God, and their children have a God, 
but they have no God. All pious example to them for 
nothing. All the divine goodness for nothing. All 
warning for nothing. They are sound asleep in the side 
of the ship, though the sea and the sky are in mad 
wrestle. O my God, wake them up! Drop a thunder¬ 
bolt upon their coffin-lid and wake them up! 

Some years ago, a man, leaving his family in Massa¬ 
chusetts, sailed from Boston to China, to trade there. 


256 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL ,. 


0n the coast of China, in the midst of a night of storm, 
he made shipwreck. The adventurer was washed up on 
the beach senseless—all his money gone. He had to beg 
in the streets of Canton to keep from starving. For two 
years there was no communication between himself and 
^family. They supposed him dead. He knew not but 
that his family were dead. He had gone out as a cap¬ 
tain. He was too proud to come back as a private sail¬ 
or. But after a while he choked down his pride and 
sailed for Boston. Arriving there, he took an evening 
train for the centre of the .state where he had left his 
family. Taking the stage from the depot, and riding a 
score of miles, he got home. He says that, going up in 
front of the cottage in the bright moonlight, the place 
looked to him like heaven. He rapped on the window, 
and the affrighted servant let him in. He went to the 
room where his wife and child were sleeping. He did 
not dare to wake them for fear of the shock. Bending 
over to kiss his child’s cheek, a tear fell upon the wife’s 
face, and she wakened, and he said, “Mary /” and she 
knew his voice, and there was an indescribable scene of 
welcome, and joy, and thanksgiving to God. 

To-night I know that many of you are sea-tossed, and 
driven by sin in a worse storm than that which came 
down on the coast of China, and yet I pray God that 
you may, like the sailor, live to get home. In the house 
of many mansions your friends are waiting to meet you. 
They are wondering why you do not come. Escaped 
from the shipwrecks of earth, may you at last go in! It 
will be a bright night—a very bright night as you put 
your thumb on the latch of that door. Once in, you will 
find the old family faces sweeter than when you last saw 


THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S CALL. 


257 


them, and there it will be found that He who was your 
father's God, and your mother's God, and your children's 
God, is your own most blessed Redeemer , to whom be 
glory in the Church throughout all ages, world without 
end. Amen. 


258 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 

“This day is salvation come to this house .”—Luke xix., 9. 

Z ACCHEUS was a politician and a tax-gatherer. He 
had an honest calling, but the opportunity for “ steal¬ 
ings” was so large, the temptation w T as too much for him. 
The Bible says he “ was a sinner”—that is, in the public 
sense. How many fine men have been ruined by official 
position! It is an awful thing for any man to seek of¬ 
fice under government unless his principles of integrity 
are deeply fixed. Many a man, upright in an insignifi¬ 
cant position, has made shipwreck in a great one. As 
far as I can tell, in the city of Jericho this Zaccheus be¬ 
longed to w T hat might be called the “ Ring.” They had 
things their own way, successfully avoiding exposure— 
if by no other way, perhaps by hiring somebody to break 
in and steal the vouchers. Notwithstanding his bad rep¬ 
utation, there were streaks of good about him, as there 
is about almost every man. Gold is found in quartz, 
and sometimes in a very small percentage. 

Jesus was coming to town. The people turned out 
en masse to see him. Here he comes—the Lord of Glo¬ 
ry—on foot, dust-covered and road-weary, limping along 
the way, carrying the griefs and woes of the world. He 
looks to be sixty years of age when he is only about thir¬ 
ty. Zaccheus was a short man, and could not see over 
the people’s heads while standing on the ground; so he 
got up into a sycamore tree that swung its arm clear 


CHRIST IN THE HO USE. 259 

over the road. Jesus advanced amid the wild excite¬ 
ment of the surging crowd. The most honorable and 
popular men of the city are looking on, and trying to 
gain his attention. Jesus, instead of regarding them, 
looks up at the little man in the tree, and says, “ Zac- 
cheus, come dowm. I am going home with you.” Ev- * 
ery body was disgusted to think that Christ would go 
home with so dishonorable a man. 

I see Christ entering the front door of the house of 
Zaccheus. The King of heaven and earth sits down; 
and as he looks around on the place and the family, he 
pronounces the benediction of the text: “This day is 
salvation come to this house.” 

Zaccheus had mounted the sycamore-tree out of mere 
inquisitiveness. He wanted to see how this stranger 
looked—the color of his eyes, the length of his hair, the 
contour of his features, the height of his stature. “ Come 
down,” said Christ. 

And so many people, in this day, get up into the tree 
of curiosity or speculation to see Christ. They ask a 
thousand queer questions about his divinity, about God’s • 
sovereignty, and the eternal decrees. They speculate, 
and criticise, and hang on to the outside limb of a great 
sycamore. But they must come down from that if they 
want to be saved. We can not be saved as philosophers, 
but as little children. You can not go to heaven by way 
of Athens, but by way of Bethlehem. What matters it 
who are elected to be saved, when we know that unless 
w r e believe and repent we shall all be damned ? Why 
be perplexed about the way sin came into the world, 
when the great question is how we shall get sin driven 
out of our hearts ? How many spend their time in crit- 


260 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


icism and religions speculation! They take the Hose of 
Sharon, or the Lily of the Yalley, pull out the anther, 
scatter the corolla, and say, “ Is that the beautiful flower 
of religion that you are talking about ?” Ho flower is 
beautiful after you have torn it all to pieces. The path 
to heaven is so plain that a fool need not make any mis¬ 
take about it, and yet men stop and cavil. Suppose that, 
going toward the Pacific slope, I had resolved that I 
would stop until I could kill all the grizzly bears and the 
panthers on either side of the way. I would never have 
got to the Pacific coast. When I went out to hunt the 
grizzly bear, the grizzly bear would have come out to 
hunt me. Here is a plain road to heaven. Men say 
they will not take a step on it until they can make game 
of all the theories that bark and growl at them from the 
thickets. They forget the fact that as they go out to 
hunt the theory, the theory comes out to hunt them, and 
so they perish. We must receive the kingdom of heav¬ 
en in simplicity. William Pennington was one of the 
wisest men of this country—a governor of his own state, 
and afterward Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
Yet, when God called him to be a Christian, he went in, 
and sat down among some children who were applying 
for Church-membership, and said to his pastor, “ Talk 
to me just as you do to these children, for I know noth¬ 
ing about it.” There is no need of bothering ourselves 
about mysteries when there are so many things that are 
plain. 

Dr. Ludlow, my professor in the Theological Semina¬ 
ry, taught me a lesson I have never forgotten. While 
putting a variety of questions to him that were perplex¬ 
ing, he turned upon me somewhat in sternness, but more 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


261 


in love, and said , te Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God 
know some things that you don’t.” We tear our hands 
on the spines of the cactus instead of feasting our eye 
in its tropical bloom. A great company of people to¬ 
night sit swinging themselves on the sycamore-tree of 
their pride, and I cry to you, “Zaccheus, come down!” 
Come down out of your pride, out of your inquisitive¬ 
ness, out of your speculation. You can not ride into the 
gate of heaven with coach and four, postilion ahead, and 
lackey behind. “ Except ye become as little children, 
ye can not enter into the kingdom of God.” “ God has 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the 
mighty.” Zaccheus, come down! come down! 

I notice that this tax-gatherer accompanied his surren¬ 
der to Christ with the restoration of property that did 
not belong to him. He says, “ If I have taken any thing 
by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” That is, if I 
have taxed any man for ten thousand dollars when he 
had only five thousand dollars of property, and put in 
my own pocket the tax for the last five thousand, I will 
restore to him fourfold. If I took from him ten dollars, 
I will give him forty dollars. If I took from him forty 
dollars, I will give him one hundred and sixty dollars. 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been sent to 
Washington during the past few years as “conscience 
money? I suppose that money was sent by men who 
wanted to be Christians, but found they could not until 
they made restitution. There is no need of our trying 
to come to Christ as long as we keep fraudulently a dol¬ 
lar or a farthing in our possession that belongs to anoth¬ 
er. Suppose you have not money enough to pay your 
debts, and, for the sake of defrauding your creditors, 


262 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


you put your property in your wife’s name. You might 
cry until the day of j udgment for pardon, hut you would 
not get it without first making restitution. In times of 
prosperity it is right, against a rainy day, to assign prop¬ 
erty to your wife; hut if, in time of perplexity, and for 
the sake of defrauding your creditors, you make such as¬ 
signment, you become a culprit before God, and you 
may as well stop praying until you have made restitu¬ 
tion. Or suppose one man loans another money on bond 
and mortgage, with the understanding that the mort¬ 
gage can lie quiet for several years, but as soon as the 
mortgage is given, commences foreclosure—the sheriff 
mounts the auction-block, and the property is struck 
down at half price, and the mortgagee buys it in. The 
mortgagee started to get the property at half price, and 
is a thief and a robber. Until he makes restitution, 
there is no mercy for him. Suppose you sell goods by a 
sample, and then afterward send to your customer an in¬ 
ferior quality of goods. You have committed a fraud, 
and there is no mercy for you until you have made res¬ 
titution. Suppose you sell a man a handkerchief for 
silk, telling him it is all silk, and it is part cotton. No 
mercy for you until you have made restitution. Sup¬ 
pose you sell a man a horse, saying he is sound, and he 
afterward turns out to be spavined and balky. No mer¬ 
cy for you until you have made restitution. 

Exodus xxii.: “ If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, 
and kill it or sell it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox, 
and four sheep for a sheep. ; If a thief be found break¬ 
ing up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood 
be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there 
shall be blood shed, for him, for lie should make full res- 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


263 


titution: if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for 
his theft. If the theft be certainly found in his hand 
alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep, he shall restore 
double. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be 
eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in an¬ 
other man’s field, of the best of his own field, and of the 
best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution.” 

You say, “ I can not make restitution. The parties 
whom I swindled are gone.” Then I say, “ Take the 
money up to the American Bible Society and consecrate 
it to God.” 

Zaccheus was wise when he disgorged his unrighteous 
gains, and it was his first step in the right direction. 

The way being clear, Christ walked into the house of 
Zaccheus. He becomes a different man; his wife a dif¬ 
ferent woman; the children are different. Oh! it makes 
a great change in any house when Christ comes into it. 
I shall not be satisfied until in every one of the houses 
of my congregation the Son of God takes up his perma¬ 
nent residence. How many beautiful homes are repre¬ 
sented here to-day! There are pictures on the wall; 
there is music in the drawing-room; and luxuries in the 
wardrobe; and a full supply in the pantry. If you were 
half asleep with my sermon, there is one word with which 
I could wake you, and thrill you through and through, 
and that word is “home!” There are also houses of 
suffering represented here, where thqpe are neither pic¬ 
tures, nor wardrobe, nor adornment—only one room, and 
a plain cot, or a bunk in a corner; yet it is the place 
where your loved ones dwell, and your whole nature tin¬ 
gles with satisfaction when you think of it and call it 
home. Though the world may scoff at us, and pursue 


264 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


us, and all the day we be tossed about, at eventide we 
sail into the harbor of home. Though there be no rest 
for us in the busy world, and we go trudging about, 
bearing burdens that well-nigh crush us, there is a ref¬ 
uge, and it hath an easy-chair in which we may sit, and 
a lounge where we may lie, and a serenity of peace in 
which we may repose, and that refuge is home. The 
English soldiers, sitting on the walls around Sebastopol, 
one night heard a company of musicians playing “Home, 
sweet Home,” and it is said that the whole army broke 
out in sobs and wailing, so great was their homesick¬ 
ness. God pity the poor , miserable wretch who has no 
home ! 

How suppose Christ should come into your house. 
First the wife and the mother would feel his presence. 
Religion almost always begins there. It is easier for 
women to become Christians than for us men. They do 
not fight so against God. If woman tempted man orig¬ 
inally away from holiness, now she tempts him back. 
She may not make any fuss about it, but, somehow, every 
body in the house knows that there is a change in the 
wife and mother. She chides the children more gently. 
Her face sometimes lights up with an unearthly glow. 
She goes into some unoccupied room for a little while, 
and the husband goes not after her, nor asks her why 
she was there. He knows without asking that she has 
been praying. T^e husband notices that her face is 
brighter than on the day when, years ago, they stood at 
the marriage-altar, and he knows that Jesus has been 
putting upon her brow a wreath sweeter than the orange- 
blossoms. She puts the children to bed, not satisfied 
with the formal prayer that they once offered, but she 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE\ 


265 


lingers now, and tells them of Jesus who blessed little 
children, and of the good place where they all hope to 
be at last. And then she kisses them good-night with 
something that the child feels to be a heavenly benedic¬ 
tion—a something that shall hold on to the boy after he 
has become a man forty or fifty years of age; for there 
.is something in a good, loving Christian mother’s kiss 
that fifty years can not wipe off the cheek. 

How the husband is distressed and annoyed, and almost 
vexed. If she would only speak to him, he w r ould “blow 
her up.” He does not like to say any thing about it, but 
he knows that she has a hope that he has not, and a peace 
that he has not; and he knows that, dying as he now is, he 
can not go to the same place. He can not stand it any 
longer. Some Sunday night, as they sit in church, side by 
side, the floods of his soul break forth. He wants to pray, 
but does not know how. He hides his face, lest some of 
his worldly friends see him; but God’s Spirit arouses 
him, melts him, overwhelms him. And they go home— 
husband and wife—in silence, until they get to their 
room, when he cries out, “ Oh, pray for me !” And they 
kneel down. They can not speak. The words will not 
come. But God does not want any words. He looks 
down and answers sob, and groan, and outgushing ten¬ 
derness. That night they do not sleep any for talking 
of all the years wasted, and of that Savior who ceased 
not to call. Before morning they have laid their plans 
for a new life. Morning comes.' Father and mother 
descend from the bedroom. The children do not know 
what is the matter. They never saw father with a Bible 
in his hand before. He says, “ Come, children, I want 
you all to sit down while we read and pray.” The chil- 
M 


266 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


dren look at each other, and are almost disposed to 
laugh; but they see that their parents are in deep earn¬ 
est. It is a short chapter that the father reads. He is 
a good reader at other times, but now he does not get on 
much. He sees so much to linger on. His voice trem¬ 
bles. Every thing is so strangely new to him. They 
kneel—that is, the father and mother do; but the chil¬ 
dren come down one by one. They do not know that 
they must. It is some time before they all get down. 
The sentences are broken. The phrases are a little un¬ 
grammatical. The prayer begins abruptly and ends ab¬ 
ruptly ; but, as far as I can understand what they mean, 
it is about this: “ O Savior ! help us! We do not know 
how to pray. Teach us. We can not live any longer 
in the way we have been living. We start to-day for 
heaven. Help us to take these children along with us. 
Forgive us for all the past. Strengthen us for all the 
future. And when the journey is over, take us where 
Jesus is, and where the little babe is that we lost. 
Amen!” 

It ended very abruptly; but the angels came out and 
leaned so far over to listen, they would have fallen off 
the battlement but for a stroke of their wings, and cried, 
“ Hark! hark! Behold! lie prays!” 

That night there is a rap at the bedroom door. “ Who 
is there ?” cries the father. It is the oldest child. “ What 
is the matter ? Are you sick “ No; I want to be 
saved.” Only a little while, and all the children are 
brought into the kingdom of God. And there is great 
joy in the house. 

Years pass on. The telegraph goes click, click ! What 
is the news flying over the country \ “ Come home. Fa- 


CHEIST IN THE HOUSE. 


267 


ther is dying!” The children all gather. Some come 
in the last train. Some, too late for the train, take a 
carriage across the country. They stand around the dy¬ 
ing bed of the father. The oldest son upholds the moth¬ 
er, and says, “Don’t cry, mother; I will take care of you.” 
The parting blessing is given. No long admonition; for 
he has, through years, been saying to his children all he 
had to say to them. It is a plain “ Good-by,” and the 
remark, “ I know you will all be kind to your mother,” 
and all is over. 

“Life’s duty done, as sinks the clay, 

Light from its load, the spirit flies ; 

While heaven and earth combine to say, 

How bless’d the righteous when he dies!” 

A whole family saved forever! If the deluge come, 
they are all in the ark—father, mother, sons, daughters. 
Together on earth, together in heaven. What makes it 
so? Explain it. Zaccheus one day took Jesus home 
with him. That is all. Salvation came to that house. 

What sound is it I hear to-night! It is Jesus knock¬ 
ing at the door of your house. 

“Behold! a stranger at the door: 

B[e gently knocks—has knocked before.” 

If you looked out of your window and saw me going 
up your front steps, you would not wait, but go yourself 
to open the door. Will you keep Jesus standing on the 
outside, his locks wet with the dews of the night ? This 
day is salvation come to thy house. The great want of 
your house is not a new carpet, or costlier pictures, or 
richer furniture—it is Jesus! 

Up to forty years men work for themselves; after that, 
for their children. Now, what do you propose to leave 


268 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


them. Nothing but dollars! Alas! what an inheritance! 
It is more likely to be a curse than a blessing. Your 
own common sense and observation tell you that money, 
without the divine blessing, is a curse. You must soon 
leave your children. Your shoulders are not so strong 
as they were, and you know that they will soon have to 
carry their own burdens. Your eyesight is not so clear 
as once; they will soon have to pick out their own way. 
Your arm is not so mighty as once; they will soon have 
to fight their own battles. Oh! let it not be told on 
judgment day that you let your family start without the 
only safeguard—the religion of Christ. Give yourself 
no rest until your children are the sons and daughters 
of the Lord Almighty. Your son does just as you do. 
He tries to w r alk like you, and to talk like you. The 
daughter imitates the mother. Alas! if father and moth¬ 
er miss heaven, the children will. What an awful wreck! 
A whole family going down in one terrific rush—into 
an undone eternity! Crash! Crash! Crash! 

Oh! let Jesus come into your house. Do not bolt the 
hall door, or the parlor door, or the kitchen door, or the 
bedroom door against him. Above all, do not bolt your 
heart. 

I w T as in the army a little while. During the day the 
soldiers drilled, and at night they all went to their tents. 
So, to-night, I look on this august assembly as a great 
army. We have been drilling to-day. Now we are 
about to break ranks, and to go, each one to his family 
tent. May the Angel of the Covenant spread his wings 
over each one of those tents! God bless you and your 
children ! Before ten o’clock to-night, build your altar. 
Take the family Bible lying on the parlor-table. Call 


CHRIST IN THE HOUSE. 


.269 


together as many of your family as may be awake. 
Read a chapter, and then, if you can think of nothing 
else besides the Lord’s Prayer, say that. That will do. 
Heaven will have begun in your house. You can put 
your head on your pillow feeling that, whether you wake 
up in this world or the next, all is well. In that great, 
ponderous Book of the Judgment, where is recorded all 
the important events of the earth, you will read at last 
the statement that this was the day when salvation came 
into your house. 

Oh Zaccheus, come down! come down! Jesus is pass- 
ing by. 


270 


THE A AND THE Z. 


THE A AND THE Z. 


I am Alpha and Omega .”—Revelation i., 8. 


LPHA is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and 



Omega is the last; so that Christ in this text rep¬ 
resents himself as the A and the Z. 

That is one reason why I like the Bible: its illustra¬ 
tions are so easy to understand. When it represents the 
Gospel as a hammer , every body knows it is to knock 
something to pieces; or as salt , every body who has put 
down meat in barrels knows it is to keep things from 
spoiling; or as a salve , that it is to cure the old sores of 
the heart. The Bible illustrations go not on stilts, but in 
a plain way walk straight into the understanding. When 
a physician in the sick-room, or a philosopher in his con¬ 
versation, or a minister in the pulpit, begins to use big 
words, and to bother you with technicalities, you may 
make up your mind that he is trying to confound you 
with his learning. I do not want a man in ordinary con¬ 
versation to call a dandelion a “Taraxacum dens leonis ,” 
or a wart “ an enlargement of the vascular papilla.” A 
dandelion is a dandelion, and a wart is a wart. 

A woman went to hear the great Dr. Alexander preach, 
and came home disappointed, saying, “ I do not think he 
is such a great man after all, for I could understand ev¬ 
ery word he said.” 

When we learn to call things by their plain names, we 
will be getting back to the old Bible way of teaching. 


THE A AND THE Z. 


271 


Any body who knows the a b c’s understands that the 
text means that Christ is the Beginning and the End of 
every thing good. 

I. He is the A and the Z of the physical universe. By 
him were all things made that are made. He made Gali¬ 
lee as well as hushed it. He made the fig-tree as well 
as blasted it. He made the rock as well as rent it. Ho 
wonder he could restore the blind man, for he first made 
the optic nerve and the retina. Ho wonder that he could 
give hearing to the deaf man, for he first set the drum 
of the ear. Ho wonder he could cure the withered arm, 
for he made the bone and strung the muscle. He flung 
out of nothing the first material out of which the world 
was formed. He set spinning around the first axle, and 
drove the first pivot, and hung to the throne the first 
constellation. The eighteen millions of suns in the Milky 
Way are eighteen million coursers of fire, by Christ’s 
hand held to their path as they fly up the steeps of heav¬ 
en. The comet of 1811, that was one hundred and thir¬ 
ty-three million miles long, answered the bit of light, and 
by his hand was turned anywhither. Jesus shepherds 
all the great flock of worlds. All these doves of light 
flew out of his bosom. Christ set one leg of the compass 
at the foot of the throne, and swung the other around to 
mark the orbits of the worlds. Standing to-night in the 
observatory of Mount Zion, I take a telescope mightier 
than that of Herschel or of Ross—namely, the Word of 
God—and I see impressed on nearest and farthest star, 
I am the Alpha ! 

It is exciting to see a ship launched. The people gath¬ 
er in a temporary gallery erected for their accommoda¬ 
tion. The spectators are breathless, waiting for the im- 


272 


THE A AND THE Z. 


pediments to be removed, when down the ship rushes 
with terrific velocity, the planks smoking, the water toss¬ 
ing, the flags flying, the people huzzaing, bands of music 
playing. But my Lord Jesus saw this ship of a w r orld 
launched, with its furnaces of volcano, and flags of cloud, 
and masts of mountain, and walking-beams of thunder¬ 
bolt, while the morning stars shouted, and the orchestras 
of heaven played, “ Great and marvelous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty!” 

The same hand that put up this universe will pull it 
down. I think the time will come when the w T orlds will 
have done their work, and must be removed, so that but 
two worlds will remain: the one a vast desert of suffer¬ 
ing, swinging through immensity—the abode of the bad; 
the other a blooming paradise for all the good. For 
eternal ages will the two swing around in their orbits of 
light and darkness. We know not by what process any 
of the worlds will be taken down, save one: that w T ill go 
by fire. Perhaps the most of the worlds will shatter in 
collision. Sirius and the North Star, Capella and Alde- 
baran, colliding into eternal ruin. The furnaces already 
on fire in the heart of the earth will burst their bounds, 
and the mountains kindle, and the great forests begin to 
crackle, and the wild beasts tumble off the crags in an 
avalanche of terror, and the metals melt, flowing in liq¬ 
uid down the gulches, and the ocean to steam and bub¬ 
ble, and finally to *flame, and the round earth from all 
sides shoot out forked tongues of fire. All the universe 
will know wdio set on fire the one world, and who shat¬ 
tered the others, for Christ, my Lord, will stand amid the 
roar, and crackle, and thunder, and crash of that final un¬ 
doing, proclaiming, I am the Omega ! 


THE A AND THE Z. 


273 


II. Christ is the A and the Z of the Bible. Here is a 
long lane, overshadowed by fine trees, leading up to a 
mansion. What is the use of the lane if there were no 
mansion at the end ? There is no use in the Old Testa¬ 
ment except as a grand avenue to lead us up to the Gos¬ 
pel Dispensation. You may go early to a concert. Be¬ 
fore the curtain is hoisted, you hear the musicians tun¬ 
ing up the violins, and getting ready all the instruments. 
After a while the curtain is hoisted, and the concert be¬ 
gins. All the statements, parables, orations, and mira¬ 
cles of the Old Testament w T ere merel y preparatory, and 
when all w T as ready, in the time of Christ, the curtain 
hoists, and there pours forth the Oratorio of the Mes¬ 
siah—all nations joining in the Hallelujah chorus. 

Moses, in his account of the creation, shows the plat¬ 
form on which Christ w T as to act. Prophets and apos¬ 
tles took subordinate parts in the tragedy v The first act 
w^as a manger and a babe; the last a cross and its victim. 
The Bethlehem star in the first scenery shifted for the 
crimson upholstery of a crucifixion. Earth, and heaven, 
and hell the spectators. Angels applauding in the gal¬ 
leries; devils hissing in the pit. 

Christ is the Beginning and the End of the Bible. 

In Genesis, who w T as Isaac, bound amid the fagots ? 
Type of Christ, the Alpha. In Bevelation, what was the 
water of life ? Christ, the Omega. In Genesis, what was 
the ladder over Jacob’s pillow ? Christ, the Alpha. In 
Bevelation, who was the conqueror on the white horse ? 
Christ, the Omega. In Exodus, what was the smitten 
rock ? Christ, the Alpha. In Bevelation, who was the 
Lamb before the throne ? Christ, the Omega. Take 
Christ out of this book, and there are other books I would 
M2 


THE A AND THE Z. 


’274 

rather have than the Bible. Take him out, and you have 
the Louvre without the pictures; you have the Tower of 
London without the jewels. Take him out, and man is 
a failure, and the world a carcass, and eternity a vast 
horror. 

III. Christ is the A and the Z of the Christian minis¬ 
try. A sermon that has no Christ in it is a dead failure. 
The minister who devotes his pulpit to any thing but 
Christ is an impostor. Whatever great themes we may 
discuss, Christ must be the beginning and Christ the end. 
From his hand we get our commission at first, and to 
that same hand we at last surrender it. Though the col¬ 
leges may give you a diploma, and Presbytery lay their 
hands on your head, if Christ send you not forth, you go 
on a fool’s errand; and though the schools reject you as 
incompetent, if the Lord God tells you to preach, you 
have a right to go, and there is at least one pulpit in the 
land where your right to proclaim the Gospel is ac¬ 
knowledged. A sermon devoted to metaphysics is a 
stack of dry corn-stalks after the corn has been ripped 
out with the husking-peg. A sermon given up to senti¬ 
mental and flowery speech is as a nosegay flung to a 
drowning sailor. A sermon devoted to moral essay is a 
basket of chips to help on the great burning. What the 
world w r ants now is to be told in the most flat-footed way 
of Jesus Christ, who comes to save men from eternal 
damnation. Christ the Light, Christ the Sacrifice, Christ 
the Kock, Christ the Star, Christ the Balm, Christ the 
Guide. If a minister should live one thousand years, 
and preach ten sermons each day, those subjects would 
not be exhausted. Do you find men tempted ? Tell 
them of Christ the Shield. Or troubled ? Tell them of 


THE A AND THE Z. 


275 


Christ the Comfort. Or guilty? Tell them of Christ 
the Pardon. Or dying ? Tell them of Christ the Life. 

Scores of ministers, yielding to the demands of the age 
for elegant rhetoric, and soft speech, and flattering apos¬ 
trophe, have surrendered their pulpits to the devil, 
“horse, foot, and dragoon.” If these city exquisites 
won’t take the old-fasliioned Gospel, then let them go on 
the downward road where they want to go, and we will 
give our time to the great masses who want to hear the 
plain Gospel, and who are dying by the millions because 
they do not hear it. Be Christ the burden of our talk; 
Christ the inspiration of our prayers; Christ the theme 
of our songs; Christ now, and Christ forever. Oh for 
more consecration! After Luther was prepared to preach, 
he said to his professor, Dr. Staupitz, “ I can not preach. 
I should die in three months. Indeed, I can not do it.” 
“ Well,” said the professor, “ if you must die, you must; 
but preach, man—preach, man—and then live or die, as 
it happens.” In that stern hour when we feel that we 
shall never preach again, and we have ascended for the 
last time the pulpit, the gown will be nothing, the sur¬ 
plice will be nothing, philosophy nothing, Presbyteries 
nothing, Conferences nothing, General Assemblies noth¬ 
ing, but Christ evert thing ! » 

“Let Zion’s watchmen all awake, 

And take the alarm they give; 

Now let them, from the mouth of God, 

Their awful charge receive. 

“May they that Jesus, whom they preach, 

Their own Eedeemer see; 

And watch thou daily o’er their souls, 

That they may watch for thee.” 

IV. Christ is the A and the Z in the world’s rescue. 


THE A AND THE Z. 


2 IQ 

When the world broke loose, the only hand swung out 
to catch it was that of Jesus. At Long Branch, on the 
beach, on a summer’s day, hundreds of people are sport¬ 
ing ; but suddenly some one cries, “ Look there! A man 
is drowning.” Out of hundreds, perhaps there is only 
one strong swimmer. lie plunges in, and brings the 
man safely ashore. On the beach of heaven, one day, 
there sat myriads of immortals, merry with a great glad¬ 
ness ; but the voice of one of the immortals cried out, 
“ See there! A world is drowning! To the rescue! 
Where are the wreckers % Launch the life-boats! Who 
will go?” Angels did not dare venture. Heaven it¬ 
self stands helpless before the scene. It knows how to 
wave a palm or shout in a coronation, but not how to 
take out of the floods a drowning world. Jesus bounds 
from the throne, and thrown his robe on one side, his 
crown on the other. Swift as a roe on the mountains, 
he comes down over the hills. The shining ones stand 
back as lie says, “ Lo! I come.” Amid the w T rathf ul 
surges he beats his way out to the dying world; and 
while, out in the deep waters, with bloody agony he 
w r restled with it, and it seemed for a little w r hile uncer¬ 
tain whether it would take him down or he would lift it 
up, those on the beach trembled, and in an hour grew 
ages older; and when at last, in his great strength, he 
lifted it in his right hand and brought it back, there 
went up a hosanna from all the cloud of witnesses. He 
began the w^ork, and he shall complete it. King all the 
bells of earth and heaven to-day in honor of Christ the 
Alpha and Christ the Omega ! 

Y. Christ is the A and the Z in heaven. He is the 
most honored personage in all that land. He is known 


THE A AND THE Z. 


277 


as a World-Liberator. The first one that a soul entering 
heaven looks for is Jesus. The great populations of 
heaven seek him out, follow him over the hills, and shout 
at his chariot-wheel. Passing along those streets, spirits 
blessed cry out to one another, “Look! that-is Jesus.” 
Methinks that if the hosts of heaven go forth in some 
other realm to fight, their battle-cry is “ Jesus.” Jesus 
on the banners. Jesus in the song. At his feet break 
the doxologies. Around his throne circle the chief 
glories. Where the white Lamb of heaven goes, there 
go all the flocks. The first tree in the heavenly paradise 
Jesus planted. The first fountain he struck from the 
rock. The first pillar of light he lifted. At heaven’s 
beginning —Christ, the Alpha. Then travel far on 
down the years of eternity, and stop at the end of the 
remotest age, and see if the song has not taken up some 
other burden, and some other throne has not become the 
centre of heaven’s chief attractions. But no; you hear 
it thrummed on the harps, and poured from the trum¬ 
pets, and shouted in universal acclaim, Christ, the 
Omega. 

Now, what is this glorious One to you, my hearer ? 
Have you seen him ? Have you heard his voice ? Have 
you walked this earth, and never seen in the bent grass 
where his feet had just been? Of all the stars in the 
midnight heavens, has not one pointed you to where he 
lay ? Trudging on across this desert with thy burden of 
sins, have you ever made the camels kneel ? Is this one, 
the First and the Last of heaven, nothing to thee ? Poor 
wanderer, without Christ, what of thy death-hour ? what 
of the judgment day? w T hat of eternity? If it shall be 
found at the last that thou hast rejected this thy only 


278 


THE A AND THE Z. 


hope, in what dark hole of the universe wilt thou lay 
thyself down to suffer, and gnash thy teeth, and howl 
forever? You must have Christ or die . But one lad¬ 
der out of the pit! But one life-boat from the wreck! 
Get in it. Lay hold of the oars with both hands, and 
pull, if need be, until the blood starts. The world is 
after you. The devil is after you. The avenger of 
blood is after you. But, more than all, Christ is after 
you, and his cry is, “ O Israel! thou hast destroyed thy¬ 
self, but in me is thy help!” 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


279 


THE LAST NIGHT. 

“ This night thy soul shall be required of thee .”—Luke xii., 20. 

M Y text introduces us into a fine farm-house. The 
occupant has been wonderfully successful. He 
has not made his money by business dodges. He has 
never “cornered” any body in stocks. He never lent 
money on a mortgage with the understanding that it 
might lie quiet for several years, and then, as soon as the 
mortgage was recorded, went down to begin foreclosure. 
He never got up a bogus company, sold the shares, and 
then backed out in time to save himself, leaving the wid¬ 
ows and orphans in the lurch, wondering why there were 
no dividends. As far as I can tell, he was an honest, in¬ 
dustrious, enterprising man. # The crops were coming in. 
The mow and the granary were full, and the men and 
oxen tugged away at other loads. The matter was a 
great perplexity. After you have gone to the trouble to 
raise a crop, you want some place to put it. Enlarge¬ 
ment is the word. 1 see him calculating, by the light of 
a torch, how much extension of room is needed. So 
many loads of corn, so many of wheat. It must be so 
many feet front, and so many feet deep. He says, 
“When I get the new building done, I shall have every 
thing. Nothing then for me to do but to enjoy myself.” 
In anticipation of the barn enlarged, he folds his arms 
and says, “ If any body in all the world is prosperous and 
happy, I am that man.” But his ear is stunned with the 


280 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


words, “ Thou fool!” “ Where did the voice come from ?” 
“Who dares say that to me, the first man in all this coun¬ 
try It was the voice of God! “ Thou fool, this night 
thy soul shall be required of thee !” 

What was the malady that took him immediately away 
—whether apoplexy, or some mysterious disease that the 
doctors could not account for—I know not. But that 
night he expired. lie never built the extension. Be¬ 
fore the remaining sheaves had been gathered he was 
himself reaped. They hauled in no loads of grain on 
the next day, but a long procession (for successful men 
always have big funerals) followed him out to burial. If 
the world expressed its sentiments in regard to him, it 
put over his grave, “ Here lies interred a successful man, 
of great enterprise and influence, and he departs, mourn¬ 
ed by the whole neighborhood. Peace to his ashes!” 
God wrote over his grave, and on his barn-door, an epi¬ 
taph of four letters—“ Fool.” That the divine epitaph 
was correct, I infer from the fact that this man had lived 
so many years and made no preparation for the future, 
and because he was postponing every thing until he got 
larger barns. Additional barn-room could not make him 
happy. Show me the man made happy by worldly ac¬ 
cumulation. Who are the men who have the most anxie¬ 
ty, and work the hardest ? The millionaires. Men work 
harder after they get five hundred thousand dollars than 
before. They work less at a hundred thousand dollars; 
still less at fifty thousand; still less at forty; still less at 
thirty; still less at five thousand dollars ; and least, of all 
when they have a salary to live on. The men who have 
the greatest freedom from care are those who live on 
their day’s wages. Prosperity is like salt water: the 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


281 


more you drink of it the thirstier you are. “ Soul, take 
thine easel” Ah ! did a man ever give ease to his soul 
by such a process ? The soul is a spirit. Can material 
things be expected to feed it? Can the-soul eat wheat, 
or corn, or hardware ? What if a man going to San Fran¬ 
cisco should make preparation for his comfort from here 
to Hoboken, and no further. Would you not call him a 
fool? But this man, about starting on an everlasting- 
journey, makes no preparation except for this life. The 
distance from here to the grave is smaller when com¬ 
pared with eternity, than the distance from here to Ho¬ 
boken is small compared with the thousands of miles be¬ 
tween here and San Francisco. This man had thought 
only of the three or four yards of human life, and re¬ 
garded not the millions of furlongs stretching out into 
the infinite. 

I wish to make two or three remarks about this man’s 
exit from the world. 

It w r as in strong contrast with his life. His surround¬ 
ings were as bright as bright could be. We know more 
about his barns than his house, but I judge of the style 
of his house from that of his barn. Men do not take 
better care of their horses and cattle than of themselves. 
The house was full of comforts and luxuries. When the 
table was spread, there w 7 as every thing on it to adminis¬ 
ter to his appetite. The wdnes w 7 ere of the best—so long 
confined that they opened witli violent hiss and explo¬ 
sion. The country, not overrun with hunters, sent its 
best game to his table. The fishermen brought him the 
best product of the stream, for he could give any price. 
If he had a family (and I suppose he had, for most 
thrifty men have a reason at home why they succeed), 


282 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


they lacked no luxury of wardrobe. When visitors came 
to that house, the master* no doubt, would take them out, 
and say, “ There are tw T enty acres of grain ; ten acres of 
corn; fifteen acres of grove. See those sheep down in 
that valley. See those cattle on that hill. All mine! 
Come and look at those fig-trees. There are some figs 
ripe. Help yourself. Plenty of them. See how those 
grape-vines thrive —and these pomegranates!” Abun¬ 
dance of every thing. Plenty to eat, plenty to wear, and 
plenty to congratulate. Yet, amid all that, he dies! How 
impudent death is ! It would not seem so bold if it went 
into that fisherman’s hut and took a life. But here it 
comes stumbling along, not stopping to look at the full 
barns, or to examine the olives, or to count the herds. It 
does, not even knock. It goes in as though it owned the 
whole place, and says, “ Come, you must go with me!” 
Death is the roughest of all constables, and makes an ar¬ 
rest without any explanation. The man says,“Wait un¬ 
til I get that new barn done.” “Ho!” “Wait until I 
settle with my men.” “Ho!” “Wait until I can sell 
out, and get my estate into better trim.” “ Ho!” “ Wait 
until I make my will.” “Ho!” “Wait until I can get 
prepared.” “ Ho!” Death says, “ I wait for nothing. 
I shall touch you twice, and then you will be mine—once 
on the heart, and once on the lungs. There ! the pulsa¬ 
tion is quiet. There! the breath is gone.” “What shall 
we do with him ?” ask the neighbors. “ I don’t care 
what you do with him,” says Death; “ I have done my 
work, now you can do yours.” 

Dr. Johnson, having ridden around the park of his 
friend, said to him, “Ah! my friend, these are the things 
that make it so hard to die.” 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


283 


Wliat then! Is elegance of surrounding no defense ? 
Can not a man hide in his full barns or in his rich 
wardrobe? No. They that trust in their wealth and 
boast themselves in the multitude of their riches—none 
of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give 
to God a ransom for him, that he should live forever and 
not see corruption. Prince Albert breathes his last in 
Windsor Castle; and Charles Dickens falls back sense¬ 
less at the dinner-table on Gad’s Hill; and Albert Barnes 
expires in a Philadelphia parlor; and Willie Lincoln falls 
asleep in the White House; and the successful man of 
the text in the night-time has his soul required of him. 

Again: The man of the text made sudden exit. There 
was no long lane leading up to this event. The only 
warning which he got was on the last night. It was not 
a gradual wasting away, but a shock—and all w r as over. 
How startled were all the hands on his place to hear of 
it! The neighbors knew not what to make of it. But 
the most surprised one of all was the man himself. So 
removal from this world is always sudden. I have heard 
of rare cases where persons said,“Such a day of such a 
month will be my last,” and it was so. But the man of 
the text was not more amazed than most people. Even 
the most confirmed invalids expect to get well. They 
expect some new effect of medicines, or a new style of 
doctor, or a change of climate will help them. It is 
while men are calculating on long days that that decisive 
hour comes—while they are expecting an enlargement 
of business accommodations, or are getting in their 
crops, or are trying to draught a new barn—suddenly! 
And wh}^ not? ; Hold that glass of exquisite ware, and 
let it drop on the pavement. How long does it take to 


284 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


shiver it? Wonder not that the delicate bowl of life 
■was broken at the fountain. Our life is of such delicate 
mechanism, so finely poised, so hair-strung, that the least 
collision is fatal. The wonder is that, with such exqui¬ 
site machinery, the pivots do not oftener slip, and the 
spring break, and all the works instantly, crash. The 
vast majority of the race go out of this life without a 
physical pang. They flash away. You can not calcu¬ 
late the brevity of the time between when the arrow 
leaves the bow and w T hen it strikes the target. 

A minister of Scotland, at breakfast, asked for some¬ 
thing more to eat, and a child started to get it, but he 
cried out, “ Hold! hold! my Master calleth me. I have 
breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus 
to-night.” And as quick as that he was gone. The rail- 
train rushes along toward Norwalk bridge. The draw is 
off. Down the train plunges. In Wales, a miner, not 
aw r are of the foul air of the mine, strikes a match. In¬ 
stantly two hundred souls are in eternity. 

It was night when the man of the text went. So it is 
night when most of the race depart. A vast majority 
of the race die between eleven and three o’clock at night. 
There seems something in the atmosphere at that time 
to loosen the grasp of body and soul. Nearly all of my 
friends have gone away in the night. The most of those 
who die by accident die in the night, because then the 
impediment on the track is not seen. Then it is that the 
flame gets headway befbre it is discovered. Then the 
burglar and the assassin are assisted by the darkness. 
The first-born of Egypt perished in the night. Senna’ 
cherib’s host fell in the night. Like the man of the 
text, the most of the race are called away in the night. 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


285 - 


I know not what had been the character of the last 
day that this man of the text had lived—whether it was 
sunshine or rainy, interesting or dull; but I know about 
the night. It was a great night. It was a thrilling 
night. It was a tremendous night. As the text comes 
rushing through the darkness, lie drops his pen. He for¬ 
gets his big barn and his unsheltered crops. “This night 
thy soul shall be required of thee.” 

But the most remarkable thing about the exit w T as that 
he was unprepared for it. It was not a lack of brain 
that kept him in. unpreparedness. A man who could 
make money as fast as he could was not lacking in 
sharpness. He knew what to plant, and how to culture 
what he had planted. He was not one of the dead-and- 
alive men who make no progress. His barns were large 
enough before, but they are too small now, with crops 
all the time growing. He was what Americans w T ould 
call “ smart,” and what the English w T ould call “ clever.” 
How a man wdio knows enough to do business, knows 
enough to save his soul. All of the idiots will be saved 
at last. He was not an idiot. But, alas! how many 
men are wise for time, and foolish for eternity! They 
know enough, when they sell a thing, to get the worth of 
it, but they barter away an immortal soul for nothing. 
They have every thing insured but their souls. They 
are careful to have all their titles good except that for 
heaven. They are prompt in'their engagements with 
banks and brokers, but fail in their obligations to God. 
They pull down their barns and build greater, to hold 
the increasing crops, but have no shelter for their souls 
so good as a barn. If a man should come at them with 
a sly game, and try to cheat them out of a hundred dol- 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


286 

lars, they would say, “ No you don’t! I see what you 
are driving at!” But they allow Satan to swindle them 
out of all the riches of heaven. 

Neither was it lack of time that ushered the man of 
the text into the last hour unarmed. I suppose he was 
very busy. Early up and late to bed, overseeing the 
workmen. From the way things went on about that 
place, I know he looked after his own business, and had 
plenty to do. But might he not rather have had fifty 
bushels of wheat less than be caught in the last hour in 
such a miserable predicament % Yes, he had time enough, 
as every man has, to prepare himself for the future. 
Men talk as though, in order to get prepared for eter¬ 
nity, they must have a month or a year to go and sit 
down, and read and pray. Why, my hearers, a prayer 
to God is just as acceptable while on your way to Ful- 
ton Ferry to-morrow morning as in your house on your 
knees. A thought about God on Wall Street is just as 
elevating as in church on Sunday. Heaven is not a 
cloud that touches only the top of some high mountain: 
it touches earth all over. And that man who has time 
to eat, or sleep, or think, has time to be saved. Yet that 
man died unprepared. He fell; not as a man who trips 
and stumbles on a road, but as men falling from some 
Alpine cliff have been watched by the peasantry as they 
go do^n—a thousand feet, whirling in the air—dashed 
on the rocks. So this man, from the tip-top of worldly 
prosperity, slipped and fell. 

Eighteen centuries have passed since that catastrophe. 
The body of that rich farmer has so thoroughly gone to 
dust that no one suspects where it is. But his soul still 
lives—lives more actively than yours or mine. And he 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


287 


remembers, as though it were only an hour ago, the stu¬ 
pendous impression of that moment when, in desperate 
unpreparedness, there came crashing into his ears,“This 
night thy soul shall be required of thee.” 

If, between this and five or six o’clock to-morrow 
morning, the same voice should accost our souls, would 
it find us likewise disconcerted ? No, I can say for many 
of you. You are not so well dressed for church as you 
are for heaven. That dress you have on will wear 6ut 
—get out of fashion; but the robe of Christ's righteous¬ 
ness will never wear out, for the latest ages of heaven 
wear the same pattern as the earliest. I do not mean to 
say that you are sinless; but Christ has made it all right, 
lie has made a transfer of your sins and pollution, so 
that you ought to think of leaving this world only as you 
think of going to a wedding. It is a wedding—the mar¬ 
riage of the King’s Son. 

How much does death hurt a good man? Not so 
much as the tip of his little finger. They who, in letting 
you down into your last resting-place, shall be scratched 
in the hand with a brier, shall be more damaged than 
you by death. The grandest place on earth to sleep, the 
softest pillow and coverlets, are in the Christian’s grave. 
Jesus took his death-robe and folded it up. As he came 
out of the grave, he would have cast off his shroud and 
thrown it into the corner of the tomb if it were never to 
be used again. But he knew that you and I would want 
to sleep there after a while, and so he took his death-gar¬ 
ments and folded them up, so that the covering might be 
ready for us. It shall not be eagles’-down that we rest 
on, but something softer and warmer than that. It is 
what David calls the “ feathers of the Almighty.” 


288 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


If there is any one on earth that is to be envied, it is 
the man who dies well. Among the eight persons who 
stood around my father’s death-bed, not one was as well 
off as he. For eighty-four years he had served God as 
few serve him. What had he to fear? I do not think 
he had been so glad sixty-two years before—on his mar¬ 
riage-day—as he was that night, as he was about to go 
to rejoin her with whom he had companioned for fifty- 
fivf years. God said to him, “ This night thy soul shall 
be required of thee,” and his answer was, “ I feel well— 
very well. All is well. Peace! Peace!” 

But not that way do all men make their departure. 
Men ought to have their worldly affairs settled, so that 
the executors and administrators will not be confounded, 
and so that what they have honestly earned be not scat¬ 
tered among those who have no right to it. If the sud¬ 
den announcement should be made to you to-night, what 
would be the state of your families ? Have you done all 
that you can to fit them for heaven ? Could you feel— 
“ Whatever I, as father or mother, could do, I have done. 
They will remember how I prayed for them and talked 
with them; and when they look at my picture, they will 
say, 4 That was a Christian parent.’ I want to go in the 
same way, and gain the same heaven?” The keys of 
this organ are twelve feet from the organ-pipes, but ev¬ 
ery time those keys are touched the pipes respond; so 
these parents are now exercising influences which will 
respond far on in the eternity of their children. If they 
play an anthem now, it will be an anthem then. If they 
play a dirge now, it will be a dirge forever. 

But, most of all, I want to know what is to become of 
you personally. This may be your last sermon. The 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


289 


concluding song of to-night;may be your last song. This 
night may be your last night. Then, “ This night thy 
soul shall be required of thee.” What then ? Into what 
scenes would you be introduced ? Would you go where 
your children, and kindred, and friends have gone, or 
where the man of the text w T ent ? They who die without 
Christ are so thoroughly ruined that they never get over 
it. The man of the text is to-night just where he was 
eighteen hundred years ago. Thousands of Gospel calls 
have been uttered since then. He has not heard one of 
them. He has been gathering in his crops ever since, 
but it is a harvest of everlasting wretchedness. God 
called him a fool in his last hour, and he who dies a fool 
is a fool forever. 

Perhaps, like the man of the text, you are- about to 
build larger barns. You are planning for worldly ac¬ 
cumulation. Do not forget to project a plan for eterni¬ 
ty. You acknowledge yourself immortal; where, then, 
will.you be a hundred years from now? You say that 
perhaps, by some great exception, you might be alive a 
hundred years from now. Then where will you be at 
the end of a thousand years? Where will you be a mil¬ 
lion of years from now ? A billion of years ? A trillion 
of years? A quadrillion of years? A quintillion of 
years ? But a hundred years are nothing; a million of 
years are nothing; a billion of years are nothing; a tril¬ 
lion of years are nothing; a quadrillion of years are 
nothing; a quintillion of years are nothing—compared 
with Eternity. 

So I ask you, Where will you spend eternity ? 

Oh, prepare for it. Leave it not until the last hour. 
Leave it not until you get sick: you may never be sick. 
1ST 


290 


THE LAST NIGHT. 


Leave it not until you get more time: you may never 
get more time. Leave it not until you get old: you may 
never get old. Leave it not until the spirit strives more 
powerfully: it may never strive again. Leave it not un¬ 
til to-morrow. This night —this night , thy soul may be 
required of thee. And suppose, in that moment, you 
should say,“Wait until I can kneel down and say my 
prayers.” Death w T ould respond, “ No time now to say 
your prayers.” “ Wait until I get my friends together, 
and bid them good-by.” Death would say, “ You can not 
stop to bid them good-by.” “ But I can not go into eter¬ 
nity with all these sins about me. Give me time to re¬ 
pent.” Death would say,“Too late to repent! This 
7 iight thy soul is required. Yea, this hour! Yea, this 
minute ! Yea, this second /” 

Oh, by the Cross of Christ, get ready. Bepent. This 
moment, bow your head on the back of the pew in front 
of you, or kneel in the aisle, and say, “Jesus, thou Son of 
David, have mercy on me!” 

In Christ you are safe. Out of him, you perish. “ O 
Israel! how shall I give thee up V 

By what argument shall I address you ? By what im- 
passionate appeal may I move you ? 

I can do nothing more. I leave you in the hands of 
that Savior who died to redeem you. I leave you to that 
God before whom you must at last appear, and answer 
for this night’s acceptance or rejection of mercy. 

Lord God Almighty! I have done my best to call them 
in. Into thy hands I commit their immortal spirits. 


THE RAINBOW ROUND THE THRONE, 


291 


» 


THE RAINBOW ROUND THE THRONE. 

“There was a rainbow round about the throne .”—Revelation iv., 3. 

D URING the last snow-storm I preached to yon from 
the text in Job, “ Consider the treasures of the 
snow.’ 5 This morning, when I looked out of the window 
and saw the storm—the rain and the snow commingling 
—a light thread and a dark thread in the robe of the 
storm—I thought I would preach to you from the pas- m 
sage, “As the rain cometh d<ywn, and the snow, from 
heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, 
so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.’ 5 
But in a little while the storm began to abate, and the 
light came into the sky, and the sunbeams streamed into 
my room, and then I concluded I would preach to you 
about the breaking away of the storms of life, and the 
“ rainbow round about the throne.” 

As, after a night of fearful tempest at sea, one ship, 
more stanch than another, rides on undamaged among 
the fragments of spars and hulks that float about, so old 
Noah’s ark, at the close of the deluge, floats on over the 
wreck of a dead world. Looking out of the window of 
the ark, you see the planks of houses, and the sheaves 
of wheat, and the carcasses of cattle, and the corpses of 
men. No tower is left to toll the burial: no mourners 
to form in line of procession; no ground in which to 
bury the dead. Sinking a line twenty-seven feet long, 
you just touch the tops of the mountains. Ghastliness 


292 m THE RAINBOW ROUND THE THRONE.- 

and liortor! The ark, instead of walking the sea, like a 
modern ship, in majesty and beanty, tosses helplessly: 
no helm to guide; no sail to set; no shore to steer for. 
Why protract the agony of the good people in such a 
cratt, when they might in one dash of the. wave have 
been put out of their misery ? 

But at yonder spot in the horizon we see colors gather¬ 
ing in the sky; at just the opposite point in the horizon 
other colors are gathering. I find that they are the two 
buttresses of an arched bridge. The yellow, the red, the 
orange, the blue, the indigo, the violet are mingled, and 
by invisible hands the whole structure is hung into the 
.sky, and the ark has a triumphal arch to sail under. 
An Angel of Light swings his hand across the sky, and 
in the seven prismatic colors he paints with pencil of 
sunbeam the everlasting covenant between God and ev¬ 
ery living creature. God lifted up that great arched 
bridge, and set it over his own head in the heaven. 
John saw it, for he says, “ There was a rainbow round 
about the throne.” 

I notice that none but the people who were in the ark 
saw the rainbow. It cast its shadow clear down into the 
water where the people were buried, and lighted Up the 
dead faces with a strange radiance, but they could not 
see it. So only those who are at last found in Christ, 
the Ark, will see the overspanning glories of the throne. 
Hence you had better get into the Ark! As you call 
your family out at the close of the shower to show them 
the sign in heaven, so I,want you all at last to see the 
grander rainbow round about the throne. “ Look there !” 
says Ho ah to his wife, a at that bow in the clouds ; and, 
Shem and Japhet, look! look !—-the green, the' yellow, 


293 


THE RAINBO W ROUND THE THRONE. 

the red, and the orange !” I should not wonder if some 
of your own children in the Good Land should after 
a while cry out to you, “ Look, father! look, mother! 
there is a rainbow round about the throne!” You had 
better get into the Ark, with all your families, if you 
want to see it. 

I notice also that the chief glory of God comes after 
the rain. No shower, no rainbow; no trouble, no bright¬ 
ness of Christian consolation. 

Weavers are sometimes, by reason of their work, dusty 
and rough in their apparel; and so it is the coarse-clad 
tempest, whose hand and foot swing the shuttle, that 
weaves the rainbow. 

Many Christians are dull, and stupid, and useless be¬ 
cause they have not had disaster enough to wake them 
up. The brightest scarf that heaven makes is thrown 
over the shoulders of the storm. You can not make a 
thorough Christian life out of sunshine alone. There 
are some very dark hues in the ribbon of the rainbow: 
you must have in life the blue as well as the orange. 
Mingling all the colors of the former makes a white 
light; and it takes all the shades, and sadnesses, and vi¬ 
cissitudes of life to make the white lustre of a pure 
Christian character. 

Your child asks you, “Father, what makes the rain¬ 
bow ?” and you say, “ It is the sunlight striking through’ 
the rain-drops.” Therefore I wondered how there could 
be a rainbow in heaven, since there are no storms there ; 
but then I conclude that that rainbow must be formed 
by the striking of heaven’s sunlight through the falling 
tears of earthly sorrow. When we see a man over¬ 
whelmed with trouble, and his health goes, and his prop- 


294 


THE RAINBOW BOUND THE THRONE. 

erty goes, and his friends go, I say, “ Now we shall see 
the glory of God in this good man’s deliverance.” As 
at Niagara Falls I saw, one day, ten rainbows spanning 
the awful plunge of the cataract, so over the abyss of the 
Christian’s trial hover the rieh-hued wings of all the 
promises. 

I notice that the most beautiful things of this world 
are to be preserved in heaven . When you see the last 
color fade out from the rainbow of earth, you need not 
feel sad, for you will see the rainbow round about the 
throne. That story about the world burning up has 
given me many a pang. When I read that Paris was 
besieged, I said, “Now the pictures and statues in the 
Louvre and Luxembourg will be destroyed; all those 
faces of Rembrandt, and those bold dashes of Rubens, 
and those enchantments of Raphael on canvas, and those 
statues of Canova.” Rut is it not a more melancholy 
thought that ruin is to come upon this great glory of the 
earth, in which the mountains are the chiseled sculp¬ 
tures, and upon the sky, in which the “ transfiguration” 
of sunrise and sunset is hung with loops and tassels of 
fire ? I was relieved when I found that the pictures had 
been removed from the Louvre and the Luxembourg, 
and I am relieved now when I think that the best parts 
of this earth are either to be removed or pictured in the 
Good Land. The trees must twist in the last fire—the 
oaks, and the cedars, and the maples; but in heaven 
there shall be the trees of life on the bank of the river, 
and the palm-trees from which the conquerors shall pluck 
their branches. The Hudson, and the St. Lawrence, and 
the Ohio shall boil in the last flame, but we shall have 
more than their beauty in the River of Life from under 


THE RAINBOW,HOUND THE THRONE. 


295 


the throne. The daisies, and the portulacas, and the 
roses of earth will wither in the hot sirocco of the judg¬ 
ment, but John tells of the garlands which the glorified 
shall wear ; and there must be flowers, or there could be 
no garlands. 

The rainbow on our sky, which is only the pillow of 
the dying storm, must be removed; but then, glory be 
to God! “ there is a rainbow round about the throne.” 
I have but to look up to the radiant arch above the 
throne of God to assure myself that the most glorious 
things of earth are to be preserved in heaven. Then let 
the world burn : all that is worth saving will be snatch¬ 
ed out of the fire. 

I see the same truth set forth in the twelve founda¬ 
tions of the wall of heaven. St. John announces the 
twelve foundations of this wall to be, the first, of jasper 
—yellow and red ; the second, of sapphire—a deep blue; 
the third, a chalcedony—of varied beauty; the fourth, 
emerald—a bright green color; the fifth, sardonyx—a 
bluish white ; the sixth, sardius—red and fiery; the sev¬ 
enth, chrysolite—golden-hued ; the eighth, beryl—a blu¬ 
ish green; the ninth, topaz—a pale green mixed with 
yellow; the tenth, chrysoprasus—a golden bluish tint; 
the eleventh, jacinth—fiery as the sunset; the twelfth, 
amethyst. But these precious stones are only the foun¬ 
dation of the wall of heaven—the most inferior part of 
it. On the top of this foundation there rises a mighty 
wall of jasper—of brilliant yellow and gorgeous crimson. 
Stupendous cataract of color! Throne of splendor and 
sublimity! You see that the beautiful colors which are 
the robes of glory to our earth are to be forever pre¬ 
served in this wall of heaven. Our skies of blue, which 


290 TEE RAINBOW BOUND TEE THRONE. 

sometimes seem almost to drop with richness of color, 
shall be glorified and eternized in the deep everlasting 
blue of that fiery stone which forms the second founda¬ 
tion of the heavenly wall. The green that sleeps on the 
brook’s bank, and rides on the sea-wave, and spreads its 
banners on the mountain top, shall be eternized in the 
emerald that forms the fourth foundation of the heaven¬ 
ly wall. The fiery gush of the morning, the conflagra¬ 
tion of the autumnal sunset, the electricity that shoots 
its forked tongue out of the thunder-cloud, the flame at 
whose breath Moscow fell and ^Etnas burn, shall be eter¬ 
nized in the fiery jasper. It seems as if all earthly beau¬ 
ty were in one billow to be dashed up against that wall 
of heaven; so that the most beautiful things of earth 
will be kept either in the wall, on the foundation, or in 
the rainbow round about the throne. 

I notice the unspeakable attractiveness of heaven. In 
other places the Bible tells us of the floor of heaven— 
the waters, and the stones, and the fruits; but now St. 
John tells us of the roof—the frescoed arch of eternity, 
and the rainbow round about the throne. Get a ticket, 
and, carefully guarded, you go into the royal factory at 
Paris where the Gobelin tapestries of the world are 
made, and see how for years a man wfill sit putting in 
and out a ball of colored worsteds through the delicate 
threads, satisfied if he can in a day make so much as a 
finger’s breadth of beauty for a king’s canopy. But be¬ 
hold how my Lord, in one hour, with his two hands, 
twisted the tapestry, now swung above the throne, into a 
rainbow of infinite glory. Oh what a place heaven must 
be! You have heretofore looked at the floor; this morn¬ 
ing take one glance at the ceiling. 


THE RAINBOW BOUND THE THRONE. 297 

I notice wliat must be the feeling of safety among the 
joeojole of heaven. Have you ever seen a cloud burst ? 
There have been days when it rained as if it would never 
stop. You knew, if it kept on in that way long, all the 
nations would be drowned; yet you had no apprehension, 
for you remembered the Bow of Promise painted on the 
cloud in Hoali’s time. So the glorified have but to look 
to the arch around the throne of the King to be reas¬ 
sured that the deluge of trial is forever past. 

On earth, the deluge of sin covers the tops of the high¬ 
est mountains. I heard an Alpine guide, amid the most 
stupendous evidences of God’s power, swear at his mule 
as he stumbled in the pass. Yes, the deluge of sin dash¬ 
es over the top of the highest mountain ranges. Re¬ 
venge, drunkenness, impiety, falsehood, blasphemy, are 
but different waves of a flood that has whelmed nations. 
Hew York is drowned in it, Brooklyn is drowned in it, 
Boston is drowned in it, London is drowned in it, St. Pe¬ 
tersburg is drowned in it—two great hemispheres are 
drowned in it. But the redeemed, looking unto the 
“ rainbow round about the throne,” see the pledge that 
all this is ended for them forever. They have commit¬ 
ted their last sin, and combated their last temptation. 
Ho suicide leaps into those bright waters; no profanity 
befouls that pure air; no villain’s torch shall fire those 
temples; no murderer’s hand shall strike down those 
sons of God. They know that for them the deluge of 
sin is assuaged, for “ there is a rainbow round about the 
throne.” How the world is covered with a deluge of 
Hood. The nations are‘all the time either using the 
sword or sharpening it. The factories of the world are 
night and day manufacturing Hotchkiss shells, needle- 
H 2 


298 THE RAINBOW BOUND THE THRONE. 

guns, and mitrailleuses. From Berlin to Paris, a river 
of blood. Russia impatient until it can throttle England. 
Throne against throne, empire against empire. The 
spirit of despotism and freedom at war in every land: 
despotic America against free America, despotic En¬ 
gland against free England, despotic Germany against 
free Germany, despotic Austria against free Austria. 
The great battle of earth is being fought—the Arma¬ 
geddon of the nations. The song that unrolled from 
the sky on the first Christmas night, of “ peace and good 
will to men, 55 is drowned in the booming of the great 
siege-guns. Stand back, and let the long line of ambu¬ 
lances pass. Groan to groan. Uncover, and look upon 
the trenches of the dead. Blood! blood!—a deluge of 
blood! 

But the redeemed of heaven, looking upon the glori¬ 
ous arch that spans the throne, shall see that the deluge 
is over. FTo buttresses are planted on those hills; no 
barricades blocking those streets; no hostile flag above 
thdse walls; no smoke of burning villages; no shrieks 
of butchered men; but peace! German and French¬ 
man, who fell with arms interlocked in hate on the field 
of death, now, through Christ in heaven, stand with arms 
interlocked in love. Arms stacked forever; shields of 
battle hung up. The dove instead of the eagle; the # 
lamb instead of the lion. There shall be nothing to hurt 
or destroy in all God’s holy mount, for there is a rain¬ 
bow round about the throne. 

Row the earth is covered with the deluge of sorrow. 
Trouble! trouble! The very first utterance when we 
come into the world is a cry. Without any teaching, we 
learn to weep. What has so wrinkled that man’s face ? 


THE RAINBOW BOUND THE THRONE. 299 

"What has so prematurely whitened his hair ? What calls 
out that sigh ? What starts that tear % Trouble ! trouble! 
I find it in the cellar of poverty, and far up among the 
heights on the top of the crags ; for this also hath gone 
over the tops of the highest mountains. No escape from 
it. You go into the store, and it meets you at your 
counting-desk; you go into the street, and it meets you 
at the.corner; you go into the house, and it meets you 
at the door. Tears of poverty! tears of persecution! 
tears of bereavement!—a deluge of tears! Gathered to¬ 
gether from all the earth, they could float an ark larger 
than Noah’s. 

But the glorified, looking up to the bow that spans the 
throne, shall see that the deluge is over. No shivering 
wretch on the palace-step; no blind man at the gate of 
the heavenly temple, asking for alms; no grinding of 
the screw-driver on coffin-lid. They look up at the rain¬ 
bow, and read, in lines of yellow, and red, and green, 
and blue, and orange, and indigo, and violet, “ They shall 
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall 
the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and 
shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Thank God 
for the glory spanning the throne ! 

In our boyhood we had a superstition that at the foot 
of the rainbow there was a casket of buried gold; but I 
have to announce that at the foot of this rainbow of 
heaven there is a box made out of the wood of the cross. 
Open it, and you find all the treasures of heaven. 

Oh that our eyes may all look upon this bow of prom¬ 
ise, lifted by Christ’s own hand! We shall trace the 


300 THE RAINBOW ROUND THE THRONE. 

separate lines of beauty across the firmament. In tlie 
line of red I shall see the blood of my Lord; in the blue, 
the bruises that colored his cheek; in the green, the 
freshness of his grace ; in the violet, his humility; in all 
that curve of beauty, the bend of his right arm of love 
swung over all the redeemed. 

But mind what I told you at the beginning, and w T hat 
I tell you at the close—that none but Koah’s family in 
the ark saw the rainbow, and that only those who are at 
last in Christ shall discover it amid the glories of heaven. 

“ Except a man be born again, he can not see the 
kingdom of God.” 


DOVES TO TEEIR WINDOWS. 


301 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS.* 

“Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their win¬ 
dows ?”—Isaiah lx., 8. 

T HERE is to many of ns a complete fascination in 
tlie structure and habits of birds. They seem not 
more of earth than heaven—ever vacillating between the 
two. No wonder that Audubon, with his gun, tramped 
through all of the American forests in search of new 
specimens. Geologists have spent years in finding the 
track-of a bird’s claw in the new red sandstone. There 
is enough of God’s architecture in a snipe’s bill or a 
grouse’s foot to confound all the universities. 

Musicians have, with clefs and bars, tried to catch the 
sound of the nightingale and robin. Among the first 
things that a child notices is a swallow at the eaves; and 
grandfather goes out with a handful of crumbs to feed 
the snow-birds. The Bible is full of ornithological allu¬ 
sions. The birds of the Bible are not dead and stuffed, 
like those of the museum, but living birds, with flutter¬ 
ing wings and plumage. “ Behold th q fowls of the air” 
says Christ. “ Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, 
and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence 
will I bring thee down,” exclaims Obadiah. “ Gavest 
thou the goodly wings unto th v peacocks?” says Job. 
David describes his desolation by saying, “ I am like a 
jpelican of the wilderness ; I am like an owl of the des- 

* Preached at the reception of ninety members. 


302 


DOVES TO THE IB WINDOWS. 


ert; I watch, and am as a sparrow alone npon the house¬ 
top.” “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her ap¬ 
pointed time; and the turtle , and the crane , and the 
swallow observe the time of their coming; but my 
people know not the judgment of the Lord”—so says 
Jeremiah. And in the text Isaiah looks ahead, and 
sees the gathering of many people unto Christ and the 
Church, and it makes him think of a flock of pigeons 
alighting on their coop, and all at once trying to get in 
at the windows of the coop, and he cries out, “ Who are 
these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their win¬ 
dows f” 

This is one of the memorable days of the Brooklyn 
Tabernacle. On other Sundays we drop the net; to-day 
we haul it in. On other days we send out the invita¬ 
tions for a king’s party; to-day we sit at the banquet. 
On other days we fight the battle ; now we claim victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we needed any con¬ 
firmation of this new tabernacle, we have it in the.bless¬ 
ing of to-day. Ye who have toiled, and contributed, 
and prayed for the success of this institution, take unto 
your souls the grand satisfactions of this hour. To you, 
oh men and women, is fulfilled the promise, “ They that 
sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Wake up, oh Church of 
God, and bring garlands and music, and let us celebrate 
our “ harvest home .” 

When persons apply for membership into any society, 
the question is asked, “Who are they, and where do they 
come from ?” and as this multitude of people to-day pre¬ 
sent themselves for membership, it is right that we should 
ask, “ Who are these that come as doves to their win¬ 
dows ?” They are captives whose chains have been 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 303 

broken ; they are soldiers who have enlisted for a thirty 
years’ war. They are heirs of heaven. 

They come as doves to the windows, first, because they 
fly low. The eagle darts up, as if to strike its beak into 
the sun. There are birds that seem to dwell under the 
eaves of heaven; you see them as little specks against 
the sky, so far off that you can not guess the style of 
their plumage or the shape of their bodies. They float 
so far away that if the hunter’s gun be discharged at 
them they do not change their course. Not so with 
doves or pigeons; they never take any high excursions. 
They fly around your roof, and alight on the fence, and 
seem to dislike great altitudes. So these* souls, who 
come to Christ and to his Church to-day, fly low. They 
ask no great things; they seek an humble place at the 
feet of Christ. They are not ashamed to be called beg¬ 
gars for mercy; they are willing to get down on their 
knees, and to crawl under the table, and to pick up the 
crumbs of Gospel provision. There were days when 
they w r ere proud, and punctilious, and inexorable, and 
puffed up; but not now. The highest throne of earth 
could not tempt Mary away from Jesus’s feet. Stoop, 
oh pardoned soul, if thou w r ouldst enter heaven. A 
high look and a proud heart God hates. Fly low . It 
is a mercy that thou canst fly at all. Remember all the 
years of thy sin ; thy days of youthful wandering; thy 
days of manhood transgressions ; thy sins—dark, brood¬ 
ing, deathful—sins against thy soul, against thy Bible, 
against thy God. 

In one of the benevolent institutions of Europe where 
the destitute are provided for, the newcomers have their 
photographs taken while in rags and before they are 


304 DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 

washed, so that they may always have in the picture a 
reminder of the degradation from which they were lift¬ 
ed; so, in this book, God keeps before thee a picture of 
thy former destitution and raggedness of soul. Fly low. 

It is an offended God before whom thou comest. 
Thou deservest his wrath. He scattered the one hun¬ 
dred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib’s host in 
a night. Tie abhors sin. He will judge the nations. 
“ Holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty.” Fly low. 

A thousand years ago an emperor planted a rose-bush 
from which roses are plucked to-day. At the foot of the 
cross, nearly nineteen centuries ago, a rose was planted 
which blooms to-day; stoop down, if thou wouldst pluck 
it. Ok for more of the childlike spirit! I rejoice in 
the belief that those who come to Christ to-day, come 
aware of their sins and their want, and have learned how 
to fiy low. 

Again : These persons who come to-day are like doves 
on their way to the dove-cot, because they fly for shelter . 
The albatross makes a throne of the tempest; the sea¬ 
gulls find their grandest frolic in the storm-—their mer¬ 
riest hour seems to be that in which the surf of the sea 
piles most high. Hot so with doves i at the first blow of 
a northeaster they fly to the coop. Eagle contends with 
eagle in midair, and vulture fights vulture on the bosom 
of the carcass, but doves, at the first dash of the bird of 
prey, speed for shelter from fiery eye, and iron beak, and 
loathsome talon. So to-day these souls come here for 
shelter. Every one has a besetting sin; that sin is al¬ 
ways after yon. The robber watches you when you 
come out of the bank, sees in what pocket you put the 
money, follows you down the street, notices where you 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 


305 


go to dine, and where you .sleep, and wdiat kind of a lock 
you have on your door; so there is some sin ever on a 
man’s track. It goes with him to the store, it sits on the 
money-safe, it looks over his shoulder while he makes 
out the bill of lading, it goes out with him to dine, it 
walks home with him at night. As to some dog that 
you do not want to follow'you, but persists, you say to it, 
“ Back! home with you !” You stone it away, and start 
on. After a while, casually turning your eye, you find 
it close after you, with a sneaking look. Wherever you 
go, sin goes; where you stay, sin stays. You have 
watched the hawk above the barn-yard: it sails around 
and around over the brood of chickens—-around and 
around, now almost down to the flock, then back again, 
until at last it drops and seizes its prey. There is a 
hawk ready to pounce on every dove, and that is the rea¬ 
son that these doves come to-day to the windows—they 
want shelter in the grace of God and in Christian asso¬ 
ciations. They say, K If there is any power in your pray¬ 
ers, let me have them; if there be any virtue in good 
counsels, give them to me; if there be any thing eleva¬ 
ting in Christian associations, let me feel their influence.” 
“ Where thou dwellest, I will dwell. Thy people shall 
be my people, thy God my God.” Open your doors, oh 
Church of God, and let them come in “ as doves to their 
windows.” 

Christ is the only shelter of the soul in trouble. What 
can you do without him when sorrow comes ? Perhaps 
at first you take valerian to quiet your nerves, or alcohol 
to revive your spirits; but have you found any thing in 
the medicines or physical stimulants sufficient ? Per¬ 
haps in the excitement of the money-market, or in the 


306 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 


merry-making of the club-room, you have sought relief. 
This world has no balsam for a wounded soul, no shelter 
for a bruised spirit. The dove, in the time of the deluge, 
flew north, and it was all water; and south, and east, 
and west, and it was all water, in which were tossed the 
carcasses of the dead world; and the first solid tiling the 
dove’s feet touched was the window of the ark. So the 
soul in trouble goes out in one direction, and finds noth¬ 
ing substantial to rest upon; and in another direction, 
and every whither, but there is no rest for the dove save 
the ark. 

‘ { Substantial comfort will not grow 
In Nature’s barren soil': 

" All we can boast, till'Christ we know, 

Is vanity and toil. 

But where the Lord has planted grade, 

And made his glories known, 

There fruits of heavenly joy are found, 

And there alone.” 

You lost a parent: some one said that it was in the 
regular course of nature that your father should expire. 
Did that comfort you? You lost a child: somebody 
said if that child had lived it might have turned out 
badly. Did that comfort you ? You lost your property: 
they told you that riches were very uncertain. You 
knew that before. You were sick: they explained to 
you that the difficulty was in the secretions, or in the 
sciatic nerve. Did that soothe you ? Oh the despicable 
quackery of earthly comfort! But when Christ comes 
to the soul, and says, “ I took your estate because I want¬ 
ed to give you more valuable treasures; I made you sick 
in body that your soul might be brought up to eternal 
health; I took your loved ones away because I have a 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 307 

better and a brighter place for them in my own pres¬ 
ence,” then the wound heals—then the tears dry off the 
face—then God has become the everlasting portion of 
the soul. Oh ! the air is full of black wings and ravens’ 
beaks. They join their wings of darkness until they 
shut out the light of the sun. They have fattened on 
the carcasses of men. Their clangor is horrible to the 
ear. Trouble, and Disease, and Death coming down on 
the wind. No wonder these souls have come for shelter, 
“ as doves to their windows.” What does the pigeons in 
the coop care for the hawk in the sky ? 

Safe in Christ, safe forever. The mountains may de¬ 
part, and the hills be removed, but thy loving kindness 
shall never fail. 

Again : These souls, like doves, fly home. Most of the* 
winged denizens have no home; now they are at the 
north, and now at the south, as the climate indicates. 
This year a nest in one tree; next year a nest in anoth¬ 
er tree. The golden oriole remains but three months of 
the year in Germany, and is then gone. The linnet of 
Norway crosses the ocean to find rest away from the 
winter’s blast. The heron, the goldfinch, and the gross- 
beak are migratory. The cranes call each other together 
several days before going, choose their leader, arrange 
themselves in two lines, forming an angle, and are gone. 
But the pigeons, alluded to in the text, summer, and win¬ 
ter, and always, *have a home in the dove-cot. And so 
Christ is the home of those who come to him. He is a 
warm home: they rest under the “feathers of the Al¬ 
mighty.” Christ tells us that chickens find not a warm¬ 
er place under the wing of the hen than we in him. He 
is a safe home: our fortunes may go down ten degrees 


308 


DOVES TQ THEIR WINDOWS 


below zero, the snows of trouble may fall, the winds of 
persecution may bowl, the jackals of death may stalk 
forth—^all is well, for “ great peace have they who trust 
in God.” From this home we shall never be driven out. 
The sheriff may sell us out of our earthly house, or the 
fires may burn it down, or the winds carry it away, but 
that home shall always be ours. 

Men talk as though starting for God were putting out 
on a trackless moor, or wandering through the sands of 
a great Sahara. ~No, no; it is coming to the warmest 
and the best of homes, “ as doves to the windows.” 

Again : These souls to-day, gathering for membership, 
are like doves, because they come in flocks. The buzzard, 
with dripping beak, fluttering up from, the carrion, is 
« alone. You occasionally look up against the wintry sky, 
and see a solitary bird winging past. But doves or pig¬ 
eons are in flocks: by scores and hundreds do they fly. 
You hear the loud whir of their wings as they pass. So 
to-day we see a great flock coming into the kingdom. It 
is not a straggler, trying to catch up with his regiment; 
it is a solid phalanx, taking the kingdom. It is not a 
drop on your hand or cheek, that leaves you in doubt 
whether it rains or not, but the rush of an unmistakable 
shower. It is not the raking up of the. gleanings, but 
the tossing up of the full sheaves into the mow—“as 
doves to their windows.” There are all ages in this flock. 
Some of them are young, and the very first use they 
make of their wings is to fly into the kingdom ; some of 
them are old, and their wings have been torn with shot 
and ruffled with the tempest, .and they had almost 
dropped into the sea. Some of them have been making 
a very crooked course. They dipped their wings in 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS: 


309 


fountains of sin—they wandered near the gulf of per¬ 
dition ; but they saw their danger—they changed their 
course. They have come, at last, “ as doves to the win¬ 
dows.” 

I thank God that I have lived to see this day; to my 
dying hour I shall not cease to praise him for this mani¬ 
festation of his grace. Praise him, sun, and moon, and 
Stars! Praise him, Church militant on earth! Praise 
him, Church triumphant in heaven! Let the Church 
beneath raise up its right hand of gratulation, and the 
Church above reach down its right hand of joy,, and, 
while the two are clasped, let the elders of the Church 
put to our lips the wine of earthly celebration, and the 
cup-bearers of heaven bring up out of the vaults of eter¬ 
nity the oldest wine, prepared Ly Him who “ trod the 
wine-press alone,” and so let two worlds at once keep ju¬ 
bilee ! 

But while a great flock this day comes to the dove-cot 
of mercy, the largest flock are-going the other way. It 
is a very easy thing to tame doves. Go out with a hand¬ 
ful of corn to feed the pigeons, and they will fly on your 
shoulders and your hands, so tame are they. God has 
fed those who are before me with “the finest of the 
wheat,” and yet you have flown from him all your lives 
long. You have taken your clothes out of his wardrobe, 
and your bread out of his hands. God’s Spirit will not 
always strive. In the morning, after a severe night, 
you have gone out and seen the birds dead on the snow; 
so, after a while, God’s mercy will cease, and the earth 
will be covered with-the bodies of those who perished in 
the storm. That storm is coming. It will shiver the 
mast of pride—it will drive into the white reefs of death 


310 DOVES TO THE IB WIND 0 WS. 

every cargo of sin. The cedars of the mountain will 
split in the hurricane, and the islands shall be moved 
out of their places, and the continents shall be rent asun¬ 
der, and the hemispheres shall whirl like a top in the 
fury of that day. The mountains will be blasted, and 
the beasts, in affright, be pitched from the cliffs in an 
avalanche of terror. The dead shall rush forth from 
their sepulchres to see what is the matter, and all those 
who despise God shall horribly perish. 

Now, do you suppose that I can stand here and know 
that that day is coming without telling you about it? 
My last resting-place will probably be near yours. What 
if, when I get up in the resurrection day, I should see 
you rushing at me across the lots of the cemetery, and 
hear you cry, “ Why did you not tell me of this ? If it 
had not been for your neglect, I should have been on the 
way to glory.” I can not prepare myself for such a con¬ 
sternation. 

“ Can you tell me how far it is to hell ?” said a young 
man, as, on Sunday, on horseback, he dashed past a good 
Christian deacon. At the next turn in the road the 
horse threw the scoffing rider, and he was dead. He 
wanted to know how far it was to hell, and found out 
without the deacon’s telling him. 

So thou art mounted on a swift steed, whose hoofs 
strike fire from the pavement as he dashes past, and you 
cry out, “How far is it to ruin ?” I answer, “ Near- 
very near /” 

“Perhaps this very day 

Thy last accepted time may be; 

Oh ! shouldst thou grieve Him now away, 

Then hope may never beam on thee.” 


DOVES TO THEIR WINDOWS. 


311 


Oh that my Lord God would bring you now to see 
your sin, and to fly from it; and your duty, and help 
you to do it; so that when the last great terror of earth 
shall spread its two black wings, and clutch with its 
bloody talons for thy soul, it can not hurt thee, for that 
thou art safe in the warm dove-cot of a Savior’s mercy. 

“Come in! come in! 

Eternal glory shalt thou win.” 


312 


THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDER\ 


THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDER, LIBERTINE, 


AND ASSASSIN. 


“He shall be buried with the burial of an ass .”—Jeremiah xxii., 19. 


EFIOIAKIM sat for ten years on a tlirone. Plenty 



of gold—plenty of sycophants—plenty of chariots. 
When he rode, I think he rode with four horses; and 
when he wore diamonds, I think he wore them as big as 
a walnut. If there had been a railroad so early in the 
history of the world, he would have stolen it. He wal¬ 
lowed in sin until a sudden change in public affairs, and 
then he died in shame* and was kicked out of public 
contempt: “ Buried with the burial of an ass.” 

After a life of private or public iniquity, a man’s 
death is not deplored. The obsequies may be preten¬ 
tious—there may be flags, and wreaths, and catafalques, 
and military processions; but the world feels that a nui¬ 
sance has been abated; he is cast forth by reason of the 
scorn and contempt of men ; and figuratively, if not lit¬ 
erally, he is “ buried with the burial of an ass.” 

Urged by recent events, I address young men to-night 
upon the romance of crime, and I want to show them 
that, though crime may be gilded and fascinating, the 
end is ruin here and damnation hereafter. 

I. There is the romance of fraud. The heroes of this 
country are fast getting to be those who have most skill 
in swallowing “ trust-funds,” banks, stocks, and moneyed 
institutions. Our young men are dazzled by the quick 


LIBERTINE\ AND ASSASSIN. 


313 


success, and.say,“That is the way to do it. He was a 
country peddler a few years ago, now see what a gorge¬ 
ous turn-out!” Theft on Wall Street is measured by 
a different standard from that which takes its spoils 
through Rat Alley. He who steals a vest from a sec¬ 
ond-hand clothing-store gets a ride in the city van with¬ 
out the opportunity of looking out of the window, but 
he who swallows a moneyed institution astonishes Cen¬ 
tral Park with his equipage. 

By a kind of irresistible instruction, our young men 
learn that the poorest way to get money is to earn it. 
“ What!” says the young man of flaunting cravat to the 
young man of humble apparel, “ you only get eight hun¬ 
dred dollars a year! Why, that would hardly keep me 
in pin money! I spend five thousand dollars a year.” 
“Where do you get it?” “Oh, stocks, enterprises, and 
all that kind of thing, you know.” The plain young 
man has hard work to pay his board-bill; has to wear a 
coat after it is out of fashion; denies himself all luxu¬ 
ries. After a while he gets tired, and goes to flaunting 
cravat, and says, “ Tell us how you get into these enter¬ 
prises.” The plain young man soon learns. Although 
he has quitted the store or shop where he used to work, 
and seems to be mostly idle, yet he soon dresses better, 
trades off his old silver watch for a gold one with a 
splendid chain, sets his hat a little farther over. on one 
side of his head, and smokes better cigars, and more of 
them. He has his hand in. And if for three or four 
years he can escape the penitentiary, he is not far off 
from being introduced to the Tweeds and the Carno- 
chans, or has something to do with the docks, or harbors, 
or pavements, or the inspection of the public buildings. 
O 


THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDER , 


314 

And after lie has got as far as that, he is safe for per¬ 
dition. A man has to travel some distance np before he 
gets into the romance of crime. The man who is caught 
and incarcerated is in the prosaic period. If the sheriffs 
and constables had given him a chance to learn the busi¬ 
ness, he would have stolen as w T ell as any body. If he 
could not have stolen a railroad, he could, at least, have 
mastered a load of pig-iron. 

I thank God when fortunes thus gathered go to smash. 
They are plague-struck, and blast a nation. I like to 
have them go to pieces in such a wreck that they can 
never again be gathered up. I like to have them made 
loathsome and an insufferable stench, so that honest 
young men may take warning. 

If God should put suddenly into money, or its repre¬ 
sentative, the power to return to its rightful owner, there 
is not a bank or a safety deposit that would not have its 
sides blown out; and parchments would rip, and gold 
would shoot, and mortgages would rend, and beggars 
would get horses, and stock-gamblers w T ould go to the 
almshouse. How much dishonesty in the making of in¬ 
voices, and in oaths at the Custom House, and in plas¬ 
tering of labels, and in the filching of customers of rival 
houses, and in false samples, and in the making and 
breaking of contracts! Hundreds of young men are be¬ 
ing indoctrinated in the idea that money must be had 
quickly, and that the larger the scale on which they take 
it, the more admirable the smartness and legerdemain. 
A young man of Hew York stood behind the counter 
selling silks to a lady. After the sale had been made, 
he said to the.customer, “ I see a slight flaw in that silk.” 
The lady recognized it, and did not conclude the pur- 


LIBERTINE\ AND ASSASSIN 


315 


chase. The head man of the firm saw the transaction, 
and wrote to the father of the young man in the country, 
saying,“Come down and take your boy home; he will 
never make a merchant.” The father came down in ex¬ 
citement to see what his boy had been doing. The em¬ 
ployer said, “Your son actually stood at the counter the 
other day and pointed out a flaw in one of our silks, so 
that we lost the sale of the goods.” The father said, “ If 
that is all my boy has done, I am proud of him, and I 
would not have him stay five minutes more under your 
bad influence. John, take your hat and come home 
and away they started. 

The pressure on our young men in town to-day is aw¬ 
ful. Hundreds of them are going down under it for 
time and for eternity. Others are nobly enduring the 
pressure. May God help them ! 

The public mind is utterly poisoned and diseased on 
the subject of rfioney-making, and no wonder that God 
spoke in thunder last week, not only to Hew York, but 
to all the cities of the world, saying, “ Look out how you 
get your money. By the hand of death or judgment it 
shall be wrenched from your grasp. If you get riches 
by fraud, you will leave them in the midst of your days, 
and at the end you shall be a fool.” 

What shall be the eternal destiny of such a man ? I 
leave you to guess. I make you the jury to say what 
shall be the doom of that Wall Street defrauder who, 
after the most gigantic dishonesties that were ever prac¬ 
ticed on this planet, died without one seeming word of 
repentance or of prayer—in his will giving away the 
spoils of the most unprecedented thefts without saying 
in that will, “ These are the moneys I got by crime, and 


316 TEE doom of tee defra uder, 

are tlie plea for my eternal condemnation.” One min¬ 
ute after a man goes up to judgment, how many steam¬ 
boats does he own ? How many shares of stock in Erie 
Hailway ? How many opera-houses % Hone! The poor 
hoy with a penny in his pocket, who stands on the street- 
corner as the funeral pageant of the dead cheat passes 
along, has more money in his pocket than the man who, 
a few days before, boasted that all the country was afraid 
of him. 

II. Next, I speak of the romance of libertinism. So¬ 
ciety has severest retribution for the impurity that lurks 
about the cellars and alleys of the city. It cries out 
against it. It hurls the indignation of the law at it. But 
society becomes more lenient as impurity rises toward 
affluence and high social position, until, finally, it is si¬ 
lent, or disposed to palliate. Where is the judge, or the 
sheriff, or the police, who dare arraign for indecency the 
wealthy villain % May he not walk the streets, and ride 
the parks, and sail the steamers, flaunting his vices in the 
eyes of the pure ? Does not the vile hag of uncleanness 
look out from tapestried window, and walk richest car¬ 
pet, and rustle finest silk, and roll in most sumptuous car¬ 
riage ? but where is the law to take these brazen wretch¬ 
es of “ high life” and put their faces in the iron frame 
of the State Prison window % 

It seems as if modern society were hastening back to¬ 
ward the days of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which 
sculptured their vileness on pillar and temple wall, until 
nothing but the lava of a burning mountain could hide 
the immensity of the crime. 

At what time the Lord God shall begin to purge our 
cities I know not, nor whether it shall be by flood, or by 


LIBERTINE\ AND ASSASSIN 


317 


fire, or by hurricane; but I do not believe the holy God 
will stand it much longer. I think that the thunderbolts 
of his indignation are hissing hot, and that when he rises 
up to scourge these crimes, against which he hath uttered 
more bitter curses than against any other, the fate of 
Sodom and Gomorrah will be found to have been more 
tolerable than that of our modern cities, which knew 
better, but showed disposition to do worse. 

Would God that the romance which flings its fascina¬ 
tions over the bestialities of high life might be gone! 
Let it be known that uncleanness on Madison Square is 
as damnable in the sight of God as the uncleanness of 
the Five Points. Whether it has canopied couch of eider¬ 
down, or sleep amid the putridity of the low tenement- 
house, four families in a room, God’s consuming venge¬ 
ance is after it. “All adulterers and whoremongers 
shall have their place in the lake that burnetii with fire 
and brimstone.” It is hell on earth.. It is hell in eter¬ 
nity. 

Ever and anon we stand aghast at some exposure of 
splendid libertinism, as God hurls it upon the public gaze. . 
Such a life ends either in violence or murder, and we 
hear in the hotel hall or boarding-house parlor the crack 
of a pistol—a libertine shot by a libertine—or the crime 
puts its victim into the lazar-house, and lets him horribly 
die there. “ He goeth after her straightway, as an ox 
goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of 
the stocks, until the dart strike through his liver.” “ As 
a bird hasteneth to a snare, and knoweth not that it is 
for his life.” “ She hath cast down many wounded; 
yea, many strong men have been slain by her.” 

III. Next, I speak of the romance of assassination. 


318 


THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDER ,, 


God gives life, and lie only lias a riglit to take it away; 
and that man wdio assumes this divine prerogative has 
touched the last depth of crime. Society is alert for cer¬ 
tain forms of murder. If a citizen, on his way home at 
night, is waylaid and slain of a robber, we are all anx¬ 
ious for his arraignment and execution. For garroting, 
or the beating out of life with a club, or axe, or slung- 
shot, the law has a quick spring and a heavy stroke. 
But let a man come to wealth or social pretension, and 
then attempt to avenge his wrongs by aiming a pistol at 
the head or heart of another, and immediately there are 
sympathies aroused; and the lawyers plead, and the la¬ 
dies weep, and the juries are bribed, and the judge halts; 
a new trial is granted, and the case is postponed for wit¬ 
nesses that never come; and after a number of months 
in prison, the door is opened and the .murderer is out. I 
call this the romance of assassination. 

If capital punishment be right, then let the life of the 
polished murderer go with the life of the ignorant and 
vulgar assassin. Let there be no partiality of hemp, no 
aristocracy of the gallows. We are, in our cities, on the 
march back toward that state of barbarism where every 
man is judge, jury, and executive officer—a state of so¬ 
ciety in which that man has the supremacy who has the 
sharpest knife, and strongest arm, and stealthiest re¬ 
venge, and quickest spring. 

He who willfully and in hate takes the life of another 
is a murderer, I care not w T hat the provocation or what 
the circumstances. A jury may clear him amid the 
plaudits of the court-room; or the President may send 
him as an embassador to Spain; or modern literature 
may gild the crime until it looks like courage and hero- 


LIBERTINE,.AND ASSASSIN 


319 


ism; nevertheless, in God’s eye, murder is murder, and 
the judgment day will so pronounce it. 

My advice to all young men is to sell their pistols, and 
take the knife out of the top of their cane, and depend 
on God and their own stout arm for defense. A man 
who does not feel himself safe without deadly weapons 
is in the wrong kind of association and companionship, 
and you had better get out of it; for the probability is 
that either they will kill you or you will kill them— 
which latter thing, for your soul in eternity, will be the 
greatest disaster of the two; for “ no murderer hath eter¬ 
nal life /” and in the future life there is no romance of 
assassination. 

To the young men of this country there comes a stout 
warning from recent events. Within the past few days, 
as never before within our remembrance, the old Bible 
words ring out on the ear: “ Her house is the way to 
hell, going down to the chambers of death.” “The 
bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his 
days.” 

What an unclean nest it was over there in Hew York! 
Both of the chief actors were defrauders and adulterers. 
Many of the sympathizers were partners with them in 
crime. All the circumstances were appalling, horrid, 
and overwhelming. The comedy and the farce at wdiich 
the nation laughed, became the tragedy that made the 
nation shudder. 

Oh young man, take not the manners, and customs, 
and habits of what is wrongly called “ high life” for 
your example. Do not think sin is less to be hated be¬ 
cause it is epauleted and adorned. The brown-stone 
front can no more keep back the judgments of God than 


320 


THE DOOM OF THE DEFRAUDED , 


can the cellar door. Behold how God blows up the 
magnificent wickedness of high places ! 

There may be some here who are venturing out into 
sin. The marks of pollution are already upon them. 
At Long Branch or Cape May, some summer day, you 
may have stood on the beach, and seen a man go down 
into the breakers to bathe. He went out farther and 
farther, until you became anxious about him. You 
wondered if he could swim. You shouted to him, as he 
advanced in the water, “ Come back! come back! You 
will be lost! you will be lost l” He turned around, 
waved his hand, and shouted “ Ho danger,” and still 
went on, until, after a while, a wave, with great under¬ 
tow, swept him out—his corpse the next day washed up 
on the beach. So I see young men going down into the 
waves of sin—deeper and deeper, farther from God, and 
farther; and I stand on the beach to-night, and cry the 
warning: “ Come back! come back! You will be lost! 
you will be lost!” Some, not heeding the warning, will 
jeer at the alarm and go ahead, till, after a while, the 
wave of God’s indignation will sweep them off, and 
sweep them down forever. 

There may be some here w T ho have ventured into sin¬ 
ful courses who would like to return. You came in 
here to-night discouraged, and feel that there is but little 
hope. I will tell you of a daughter who went from 
home into the paths of sin. After many months of wan¬ 
dering she resolved one night to go home to her moth¬ 
er’s house. It was after midnight when she arrived at 
the house. She supposed that the door would be lock¬ 
ed ; but, putting her hand on the latch, the door opened. 
She asked her mother why it was that the door, after 


LIBERTINE , AND ASSASSIN. 


321 


midnight, was unlocked. Said the mother, “ That door 
has never been locked since you went away. I have 
given orders that, by day and night, it should be unfast¬ 
ened, for I was sure that you would come back, and 
when you came I did not want you to be hindered a 
minute.” So I have to tell you that the door of God’s 
mercy is ever unlocked. By day and by night it stands 
open for your coming. Though your sins were as scar¬ 
let, they shall be as snow; though they were red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool. Though you may be 
polluted with all crimes, and smitten of all leprosies, and 
fired by the most depraved passions, and have not heard 
the Gospel invitation for twenty years, you may have set 
upon your brow, hot with infamous practices and be- 
sweated with exhaustive indulgences, the flashing coro¬ 
net of a Savior’s forgiveness. 

Who is it that cometh yonder ? Methinks I know his 
steps. Methinks before this I have seen the rags. Look, 
all ye people of God! Out of all the windows of heav¬ 
en let the angels watch! A prodigal returning! Let us 
go out and meet him. Welcome back again to thy long- 
forsaken home and to thy long-forsaken God. The dead 
is alive again ! The lost is found! 

“Pleased with the news, the saints below 
In songs their tongues employ; 

Beyond the sky the tidings go, 

And heaven is filled with joy. 

“ Nor angels can their joy contain, 

But kindle with new fire; 

The sinner lost is found! they sing, 

And strike the sounding lyre.” 

O 2 


322 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 

“ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine 
linen, and fared sumptuously every day; and there was a certain beggar 
named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be 
fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table : moreover the 
dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar 
died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man 
also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in tor¬ 
ments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he 
cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, 
that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I 
am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that 
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented .”—Luke xvi., 
19 - 25 . 

W E stand in one of the finest private houses of old¬ 
en time. Every room is luxurious. The floor, 
made of stones, gypsum, coal, and chalk, pounded to¬ 
gether, is hard and beautiful. From the roof, surround¬ 
ed by a balustrade, you take in all the beauty of the land¬ 
scape. The porch is cool and refreshing, where sit the 
people who have come in to look at the building, and are 
waiting for the usher. In this place you hear the crys¬ 
tal plash of the fountains. The windows, reaching to 
the floor, and adorned, are quiet places to lounge in, and 
we sit here listening to the stamp of the blanketed horses 
in the princely stables. Venison and partridge, delicate 
morsels of fatted calf, and honey, and figs, and dates, 
and pomegranates, and fish that only two hours ago 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


323 


glided in the lake, and bowls of sherbet from Egypt, 
make up the feast, accompanied with riddles, and jests 
that evoke roaring laughter, with occasional outbursts of 
music, in which harps thrum, and cymbals clap, and 
shepherd’s pipe whistles. What a place to sit in ! 

The lord of the place, in dress that changes with ev¬ 
ery whim, lies, on a lounge, stupid from stuffed digestion. 
His linen is so fine, I wonder who washed it and who 
ironed it. Ilis jewels the brightest, his purple the rarest. 
Let him lie perfectly quiet a moment until we take his 
photograph. Here w T e have it: “A certain rich man, 
which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared 
sumptuously every day.” How accurate the picture! 
You can see every pleat in the linen and every w T rinkle 
in the skirt. What more could that man have ? My 
lord, be happy ! After a while he leans over the balus¬ 
trade, and says to a friend in shining apparel, “ Look at 
that fellow lying down at my gate. I wonder wdiy the 
porter allows him to lie there. How disgusting ! But 
our dogs will be let out of the kennel very soon, and will 
clear him out.” Yes, they bound toward him. “ Take 
hold of him!” cries the rich man from the balustrade. 
The dogs go at the beggar with terrible bark; then take 
lower growling; then stop to yawn ; and at the coaxing 
tone of the poor wretch, they frisk about him, and put 
their soft, healing tongues to his ulcers, driving off the 
flies, and relieving the insufferable itch and sting of 
wounds which could not afford salve or bandage. Laza¬ 
rus has friends at last. They will for a wdiile keep off 
the insults of the street, and defend their patient. That 
man is far from friendless who has a good dog to stand 
by him. Dogs are often not so mean as their masters. 


324 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


They will not be allowed to enter heaven, but may they 
not be allowed to lie down at the gate ? for John says of 
the door of heaven, “ Without are dogs.” But what is 
the matter with that beggar ? He lies over now with his 
face exposed to the sun. Lazarus, get up! He responds 
not. Poor fellow, he is dead. Two men appointed of 
the town come to carry him out to the fields. They dig 
a hole, drop him in, and cover him up. The people say, 
“ One more nuisance got rid of!” Aha! that is not Laz¬ 
arus that they buried. It was only his sores. Yonder 
goes Lazarus, an angel on his right hand, an angel on 
the left, carrying him up the steep of heaven—talking, 
praising, rejoicing. Good old Abraham stands at the 
gate, and throws his arms around the newcomer. How 
Lazarus has his own fine house, and his own robes, and 
his own banquet, and his own chariot, and that poor, 
sickly carcass of his that the overseers of the town dump¬ 
ed in the potter’s field will come up at the call of the 
archangel, straight, and pure, and healthy, corruption 
having become incorruption. 

How we will go back a minute to the fine Oriental 
house that we spoke of. The lord of the place has been 
receiving visitors to-day as the doorkeeper introduced 
them. After a while there is a visitor who waits not for 
the porter to open the gate, or for the doorkeeper to in¬ 
troduce him. Who is if coming ? Stop him there at th'e 
door! How dare he come in unheralded ! He walks 
into the room, and the lord cries, with terror-struck face, 
“ This is >Death. Away with him /” There is a hard 
thump on the floor. Is it a pitcher which has fallen, or 
an ottoman which has upset? Ho. Dives has fallen. 
Dives is dead! 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


325 


The excitement in town is great. The grooms rush 
from the barn to see. All the great folks of the neigh¬ 
borhood who. used to sit at his dinners come in. The 
grocer from whom he got his spices, the butcher from 
whom he got the meat, and the clothier from whom he 
got the garments, come to find out all about it. 

The day of burial has arrived. He is carried down 
out of his splendid room, and through the porch into 
the street. The undertaker will make a big job of it, 
for there is plenty to pay. There will be high eulogies 
of him pronounced, although the text represents him as 
chiefly distinguished for his enormous appetite and his 
fine shirt. 

The long procession moves on, amid the accustomed 
weeping and howling of Oriental obsequies. The sepul¬ 
chre is reached. Six persons carrying the body go care¬ 
fully down the steps leading to the door of the dead. 
The weight of the body on those ahead is heavy, and 
they hold back. The relics are left in the sepulchre, and 
the people return. But Dives is not buried there. That 
which is buried is only the shell in which he lived. 
Dives is down yonder in a deeper grave. He who had 
all the wine he could drink asks for a plainer beverage. 
He wants water. He does not ask for a cupful, or a 
teaspoonful,but “just one drop,” and he can not get it. 
He looks up and sees Lazarus, the very man whom he 
set his dogs on, and wants him to put his finger in water 
and let him lick it off. Once Lazarus wanted just the 
crumbs from Dives’s feast; now Dives wants just a drop 
from Lazarus’s banquet. Poor as poor can be. He has 
eaten the last quail’s wing. He has broken the rind of 
the last pomegranate. Dives the lord has become Dives 


326 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


the pauper. The dogs of remorse and despair come not 
with healing tongue to lick, but with relentless muzzle 
to tear. Now Dives sits at the gate in everlasting beg¬ 
gary, while Lazarus, amid the festivities of heaven, fares 
sumptuously every day. You see that this parable takes 
in the distant future, and speaks as though the resurrec¬ 
tion were passed, and the body of Lazarus had already 
joined his spirit, and so I treat it. 

Well, you see a man may be beggared for this life , but 
be a prince in eternity. A cluster of old rags was the 
•entire property of Lazarus. Llis bare feet and ulcered 
legs were an invitation to the brutes—his food the broken 
victuals that were pitched out by the housekeeper, half- 
chewed crusts, rinds, peelings, bones, gristle—about the 
last creature out of which to make a prince, yet for eight¬ 
een hundred years he has been one of the millionaires 
of heaven. No more waiting for crumbs. He sits at 
the same table , with the kings of eternity, himself one of 
them. What were the forty years of his poverty com¬ 
pared with the long ages of his royalty ? 

Let all the Christian poor be comforted. Your good 
days will be after a while. Stand it a little longer, and 
you will be all right. God has a place for you among 
the principalities. Do not be afraid of the dogs of dis¬ 
tress: they will not.bite—they will help to heal. Your 
poverty may sometimes have led you to doubt whether 
you will have a decent funeral. You shall have grander 
obsequies than many a man who is carried out by a pro¬ 
cession of governors and senators. The pall-bearers will 
be the angels that carried Lazarus into Abraham’s bo¬ 
som. The surveyors have been busy. Your eternal pos¬ 
sessions have been already laid out by God’s surveyors, 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


327 


and the stake that bounds the property on this side is 
driven into the top of your grave, and all beyond is yours. 
You can afford to wear poor clothes now, when for you 
in the upper wardrobes is folded up the royal purple. 
You can afford to have coarse food here, when your bread 
is to be made from the finest wheat of the eternal har¬ 
vests. Cheer up! Weeping may endure for a night, 
but joy cometh in the morning. 

See, also, that a man may have every comfort and lux¬ 
ury here , and yet come to a wretched future. It is no 
sin to be rich. It is a sin not to be rich, if we can be 
honestly. I wish I had five hundred thousand dollars— 
1 suppose I might as well make it a million—I see so 
much suffering and trial every day that I say again and 
again, I wish I had the money to relieve it. But alas 
for the man who has nothing but money ! Dives’s house 
had a front door and a back door, and they both opened 
into eternity. Sixty seconds after Dives was gone, of 
what use his horses ? he could not ride them; of what 
use his rich viands ? he could not open his clenched teeth 
to eat them; of what use his fine linen shirts, when he 
could not wear them ? The poorest man who stood along 
the road watching the funeral procession of Dives owned 
more of this world than the dead gormandizer. The fu¬ 
ture world was all the darker because of the brightness 
of this. That wife of a drunken husband, if she does 
wrong, and loses her soul, will not find it so intolerable 
in hell as others, for she has been in hell ever since she 
was married, and is partially used to it. But this man 
of the text had every thing once, now nothing. lie had 
the best wine; now he can not get water. He had, like 
other affluent persons of the East, slaves to fan him when 


328 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


he was hot; now he is being consumed. He can afford 
no covering so good as the old patches that once fluttered 
about Lazarus as he walked in the wind. Who here will 
take Dives’s fine house, and costly plate, and dazzling 
equipage, and kennel of blooded dogs, if his eternity 
must be thrown in with it ? 

Men! men! who have nothing but worldly success as 
your goal, consider. After you get your elegant house, 
or your influential business firm, will you be fitted out 
for eternity? Breakfasting at half past seven in the 
morning, and dying at ten, where will you dine ? Tak¬ 
ing tea at six o’clock, and dying at eleven, where will you 
sleep? The Indian who for a string of beads sells as 
much territory as will make a state, is wise compared 
with a man w T ho for the trinkets of earth barters heaven. 
“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul ?” 

See farther in the text the extreme suffering of the 
finally exiled. It has been a wonder to me why Uni- 
versalists come to my church, not merely temporarily, but 
that they hold sittings here, and come to all our services, 
and they are among my best friends. I hold in my hand 
a letter which makes it plain. The writer of it evident¬ 
ly believes there is no future place of punishment. He 
says in his letter: “ I don’t believe that which you preach, 
but I am certain you believe it. I prefer to hear you ex¬ 
pound the Bible, because you do not ignore hell; for if 
the foundation of your faith is true, hell is just as cer¬ 
tain as Paradise, and has just as much of a locality.” 
How I understand it. Men want us to be frank in the 
declaration of our beliefs. All the world knows that the 
leading denominations in this day believe that there is a 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


329 


liell as certainly as that there is a heaven. Why, then, 
slur over the fact, or try to hide it, or declare it only with 
slight emphasis ? I am an old fogy in my interpretation 
of the Bible. I have not so much intellect as those men 
who know how to make an eternity of their own, spin¬ 
ning it out of their own brain. Not having intellect 
enough to fashion an eternity of my own, I must take 
the theory of the Bible. I believe there is a hell. If I 
had not been afraid of hell, I do not think I should have 
started for heaven. You say, “I will not be scared in 
that way. I will not be affrighted by any future pun¬ 
ishment.” You are quite mistaken. I can frighten you 
half to death in five minutes. As you are walking along 
the streets, let me pull down the house-scaffolding, weigh¬ 
ing two or three tons, about your head, and you will look 
as white as a sheet, while your heart will thump like a 
trip-hammer. Now, if it is not ignoble to be affrighted 
about a falling scaffold, is it ignoble to be affrighted by 
a threat from the Omnipotent God, who with one stroke 
of his right hand could crush the universe? You ask 
how God, being a father, could let us suffer in the future 
world ? I answer your question by asking how God, be¬ 
ing a father, can let suffering be in this world ? Tell me 
why he allowed that woman to whom I administered the 
holy sacrament this afternoon to have a cancer; tell me 
why children suffer such pains in teething, the lancet 
striking such torture in the swollen gums. You fail to 
explain to me suffering in the present time; be not sur¬ 
prised if I fail to explain to you suffering in the future. 
On the way to reject the doctrine of future punishment, 
men begin by rejecting the idea of material fire. In a 
few years, while they admit future punishment, they deny 


330 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


that it is eternal. A few years after that they cast out 
the whqle idea of future punishment, and let all the 
thieves, pickpockets, and debauchees of the universe go 
into glory. As far as I can understand the modern pop¬ 
ular theory of future punishment, it is that a man goes 
down and sits on a hard-bottomed chair for a little while, 
and after he gets tired of roughing it, goes up to sit on 
cushions in glory. I will give you my idea of future 
suffering. I do not ask you to take my theory. I am 
not your pope; I am your pastor. I believe that there 
is an eternal hell, and I believe that there is literal fire. 
And this is my evidence: 

Matthew xiii., 50—“And shall cast them into the fur¬ 
nace of fire.” 

Rerelation xiv., 10—“ He shall be tormented with fire 
and brimstone.” 

Revelation xix., 20—“ These were cast alive into a lake 
of fire burning with brimstone.” 

Isaiah lxvi., 24—“Neither shall their fire be quench¬ 
ed.” 

Matthew xv., 41—“ Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire.” 

Revelation xxi., 8—“ All liars shall have their part in 
the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.” 

Marie ix., 45—“ Better than, having two feet, to be 
cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.” 

The words in my text—“ I am tormented in this flame.” 

Would not a common-sense man not prejudiced in the 
case take this to be fire ? literal fire ? an all-sweeping 
fire ? an eternal fire \ Lest you should dispute it, it tells 
what the fire is to be kept in. It is a furnace of fire. 
Lest you should say that it is a different kind of fire from 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


331 


that which we know about, it says, “ Its smoJce ascend- 
eth lip forever.” Ah! your father and mother, who 
adopted this literalism, were not such big fools as you 
make out. They studied their Bibles more than w r e do, 
and read less of the human criticisms that have slopped 
over on the pure page. All the engines of the nineteenth 
century have turned their hose toward putting out this 
fire. But still it has burned on, and will burn forever. 
It is a great, stubborn, overwhelming fact, that all the in¬ 
genuity of men and devils may -war against, but can not 
destroy. There is not so much evidence that there was 
a raging fire a few weeks ago in Chicago as that there 
is to-night a fire in hell; for the one information we 
have on human authority, the other by the mouths of 
evangelists and of prophets, and of the Lord Jesus, the 
Son of God. We have silenced this mighty battery of 
future punishment, and given to the villains of the w r orld 
the idea that they shall at last go free; and under your 
beautiful teachings, Tweed, and Sweeney, and Hall, and 
Connolly expect to go right up when they die, and sit in 
the laps of patriarchs and apostles. 

God deals with this world in two ways—by treaty and 
by cannonade : by treaty, in which, for the sake of Jesus 
Christ, and by the surrender of our hearts to him, he w T ill 
be at peace with us, or by the opening of the smoking 
batteries of hell fire, by which he will hurl upon his ene¬ 
mies a horrible tempest; and he who will not be drawn 
by love shall be crushed under his wrath. 

See also, from this subject, that heaven is not a myth 
or an abstraction, but a place of warm personal inter¬ 
course. Lazarus was carried up to the bosom of Abra¬ 
ham, one of the glorious old patriarchs. I suppose Abra- 


332 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


ham happened to meet him at the gate. And so, after 
death, we will be greeted into glory. Our departed 
friends will be at the door. They have been waiting for 
our coming. Count up their number if you can. Your 
father is there. Your mother is there. Your children 
are there. Your old neighbors are there. Many of the 
friends with whom you used to attend church, or do bus¬ 
iness, are there. They have been dead these five, ten, 
or twenty years, and have been w r aiting within the vail. 
There is no clock in heaven, because it is an everlasting 
day; yet they keep an account of the passing years, be¬ 
cause they are all the time hearing from our world. The 
angels flying through heaven report how many times the 
earth has turned on its axis, and in that way the angels 
can keep a diary; and they say it is almost time now for 
father to come up, or for mother to come up. Some day 
they see a cohort leaving heaven, and they say, “ Whith¬ 
er bound P and the answer is, “ To bring up a soul from 
earthand the question is asked, “ What soul P And 
a family circle in heaven find that it is one of their own 
number that is to be brought up, and they come out to 
watch, as on the beach we now watch for the sail of a 
ship that is to bring our friends home. After a while 
the cohort will heave in sight, flying nearer and nearer, 
until with a great clang the gates hoist, and with an em¬ 
brace, wild with the ecstasy of heaven, old friends meet 
again. 

Away with your stiff, formal heaven! I Want none 
of it. Give me a place of infinite and eternal sociality. 
My feet free from the clods of earth, I shall bound the 
hills with gladness, and break forth in a laugh of tri¬ 
umph. Aha! aha! We weep now, but then we shall 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


333 


laugh. “Abraham’s bosom,” in the text, means that 
heaven has open arms to take us in. Now we fold our 
arms over our heart, and tell the world to stand back, as 
though our bosom were a two-barred gate to keep the 
world out. Heaven stands not with folded arms, but 
with heart open. It is “Abraham’s bosom.” 

I see a mother and her child meeting at the foot of 
the throne after some years’ absence. The child died 
twenty years ago, but it is a child yet. I think the little 
ones who die will remain children through all eternity. 
It would be no heaven without the little darlings. I do 
not want those that are in heaven to grow up. We need 
their infant voices. in the great song. And when we 
walk out in the fields of light, we want them to run 
ahead, and clap their hands, and pick out the brightest 
of the field flowers. Yes, here is a child and its mother 
meeting. The child long in glory, the mother just ar¬ 
rived. “ How changed you are, my darling!” says the 
mother. “ Yes,” says the child, “ this is such a happy 
place ; and Jesus has taken such care of me, and heaven 
is so kind, I got right over the fever with which I died. 
The skies are so fair, mother ! The flowers are so sweet, 
mother ! The temple is so beautiful, mother! Come, 
take me up in your arms as you used to.” 

Oh, I do not know how we shall stand the first day in 
heaven. Do you not think we will break down in the 
song from over-delight ? I once gave out in church the 
hymn, 

“ There is a land of pure delight, 

Where saints immortal reign,” 

and an aged man standing in front of the pulpit sang 
heartily the first verse, and then he sat down weeping. 


334 


LAZARUS AND DIVES. 


I said to liim afterward, “ Father Linton, what made you 
cry over that hymn ?”. He said, “ I could not stand it— 
the joys that are coming.” When heaven rises for the 
doxology, I can not see how we can rise with it if all 
these waves of everlasting delight come upon the soul, 
billow of joy after billow of joy. Methinks Jesus would 
be enough for the first day in heaven, but here he ap¬ 
proaches with all heaven at his back. 

Thus I have set before you light and darkness, joy and 
sorrow, victory and defeat, the rewards of Lazarus, and 
the overthrow of Dives. 

Choose ye between the angelic escort and the parched 
tongue, between the fountains of God and the waterless 
desert, between a glorious heaven and a burning hell. 

In the name of my God, and with reference to my last 
account, I have set before you two worlds. Choose te ! 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT 


335 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 

“ This year thou shalt die .”—Jeremiah xxviii., 16.- 

J EREMIAH, accustomed to saying bold things, ad¬ 
dresses Hananiah in these words. They prove true. 
In sixty days Hananiah was a dead man. 

This is the first Sabbath of the year. It is a time for 
review and for anticipation. A man must be a genius 
at stupidity who does not think now. The old year died 
in giving birth to the new, as the life of Jane Seymour, 
the English queen, departed when that of her son, Ed¬ 
ward YI., dawned. The old year was a queen. The 
new shall be a king. The grave of the one and the cra¬ 
dle of the other are side by side. We can hardly guess 
what the child will be. It is only seven days old, but I 
prophesy for it an eventful future. Year of mirth and 
madness ! Year of pageant and conflagration ! It will 
laugh ; it will sing; it will groan ; it will die. 

Is it not a time for earnest thought ? The congratu¬ 
lations have been given. The Christmas-trees have been 
taken down, or have well-nigh cast their fruit. The va¬ 
cation ended, the children are at school. The friends 
who came for the holidays are gone in the rail-train. 
While we are looking forward to another twelve months 
of intense activities, the text breaks upon us like a burst¬ 
ing thunderhead : “ This year thou shalt die!” 

May God help us in this service. I know not why you 
have come. On the coast of England, three men entered 


336 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


a house of worship with stones in their pockets, intend¬ 
ing to interrupt the services and assault the preacher. 
As the preacher began, one of the men said, “ Let us 
throw.” The other said, “ Let us wait until he has made 
out this point.” At the close of that, the first said, “ Now 
let us throw.” The third suggested, “ I think w r e had 
better not throw these stones at all, but listen.” The 
first two, in disgust, left the building, and were after¬ 
ward executed for great crimes. The third remained, 
and accepted the truth of the Gospel, and afterward 
proclaimed it to many thousands. You may have come 
here to-night, some of you, merely to pelt me with your 
criticisms; but I think you had better drop your weap¬ 
ons. It makes but little difference to me w T hat you think 
of me, as it makes but little difference to you what I 
think of you. But what think ye of Christ ? Of death ? 
Of the judgment ? Of heaven ? Of hell ? 

The text will probably prove true of some of us: 
“ This year thou slialt die.” The probability is augment¬ 
ed by the fact that all of us who are over thirty years of 
age have gone beyond the average of human life. The 
note is more than due. It is only by sufferance that it is 
not collected. We are like a debtor who is taking the 
“ three days’ grace” of the banks. Our race started with 
nine hundred years for a lifetime. We read of but one 
antediluvian youth whose early death disappointed the 
hopes of his parents by his dying at seven hundred and 
seventy-seven years of age. The world then may have 
been ahead of what it is now, for men had so long a time 
in which to study, and invent, and plan. If an artist or 
a philosopher has forty years for work, he makes great 
achievements; but what must the artists and philoso- 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 337 

phers have done who had nine hundred years before 
them ? In the nearly two thousand years before the 
flood, considering the longevity of the inhabitants, there 
may have been nearly as many people as there are now. 
The flood was not a freshet, that w T ashed a few people off 
a plank, but a disaster that may have swept away a thou¬ 
sand million. If the Atlantic Ocean, by a lurch of the 
earth to-night, should drown this hemisphere, and the 
Pacific Ocean, by a sudden lurch of the earth, should 
drown the other hemisphere, leaving about as many be¬ 
ings as could be got in one or two Cunard steamers, it 
would give you an idea of what the ancient flood was. 

At that time God started the race with a shorter al¬ 
lowance of life. The nine hundred years were hewn 
down, until, in the time of Vespasian, a census w T as tak¬ 
en, and only one hundred and twenty-four persons were 
found one hundred years old, and three or four persons 
one hundred and forty years old. Now a man who has 
come to one hundred years of age is a curiosity, and we 
go miles to see him. The vast majority of the race pass 
off before twenty years. To every apple there are five 
blossoms that never get to be apples. In the country 
church, the sexton rings the bell rapidly until almost 
through, and then tolls it. For a while Jhe bell of our 
life rings right merrily; but with some of you the bell 
has begun to toll, and the adaptedness of the text to you 
is more and more probable : “This year thou shalt die.” 

The character of our occupations adds to the proba¬ 
bility. Those who are in the professions are undergoing 
a sapping of the brain and nerve foundations. Literary 
men in this country are driven with whip and spur to 
their topmost speed. Not one brain-w T orker out of a 
P 



338 A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 

hundred observes any moderation. There is something 
so stimulating in our climate that, if John Brown, the es¬ 
sayist of Edinburg, had lived here, he would have broken 
down at thirty-five instead of fifty-five, and Charles Dick¬ 
ens would have dropped at forty. 

There is something in all our occupations which pre¬ 
disposes to disease. If we be stout, to disorders ranging 
from fevers to apoplexy. If we be frail, to diseases rang¬ 
ing from consumption to paralysis. Printers rarely reach 
fifty years. Watchmakers, in marking the time for oth¬ 
ers, shorten their own. Chemists breathe death in their 
laboratories, and potters absorb paralysis. Painters fall 
under their own brush. Founderymen take death in 
with the filings. Shoemakers pound away their own 
lives on the last. Overdriven merchants measure off 
their own lives with the yard-stick. Millers grind their 
own lives with the grist. Masons dig their graves with 
the trowel. And in all our occupations and professions 
there are the elements of peril. 

Bajnd climatic changes threaten our lives. By rea¬ 
son of the violent fits of the thermometer, within two 
days we live both in the Arctic and the Tropic. The 
warm south wind finds us with our furs on. The win¬ 
try blast cuts through our thin apparel. The hoof, the 
wheel, the fire-arms, the assassin, await their chance to 
put upon us their quietus. 

I announce it as an impossibility that three hundred 
and sixty-five days should pass and leave us all as we 
now are. In what direction to shoot the arrow I know 
not, and so I shoot it at a venture: “This year thou shalt 
die” 

In view of this, I advise that you have your temporal 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


339 


matters adjusted. Do not leave your worldly affairs at 
the mercy of administrators. Have your receipts prop¬ 
erly pasted, and your letters filed, and your books bal¬ 
anced. If you have “trust-funds,” see that they are 
rightly deposited and accounted for. Let no widow or 
orphan scratch on your tombstone, “ This man wronged 
me of my inheritance,” Many a man has died, leaving 
a competency, whose property has, through his own care¬ 
lessness, afterward been divided between the administra¬ 
tors, the surrogate, the lawyers, and the sheriffs. I charge 
you, before many days have gone, as 1 far as possible, have 
all your worldly matters made straight, for “ this year 
thou shalt die” 

I advise also that you be busy in Christian work. IIow 
many Sabbaths in the year ? Fifty-two. If the text be 
true of you, it does not say at what time you may go, 
and therefore it is unsafe to count on all of the fifty-two 
Sundays. As you are as likely to go in the first half of 
the year as in the last half, I think we had better divide 
the fifty-two into halves, and calculate only twenty-six 
Sabbaths. Come, Christian men, Christian women, what 
can you do in twenty-six Sabbaths? Divide the three 
hundred and sixty-five days into two parts: what' can 
you do in one hundred and eighty-two days ? What, by 
the way of saving your family, the Church, and the 
world? You will not, through all the ages of eternity 
in heaven, get over the dishonor and the outrage of going 
into glory, and having helped none up to the same place. 
It will be found that many a Sabbath-school teacher has 
taken into heaven her whole class; that Daniel Baker, 
the evangelist, took hundreds into heaven; that Dodd¬ 
ridge took in many thousands; that Paul took in a him- 


340 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


dred million. How many will you take in ? If you get 
into heaven, and find none there that you sent, and that 
there are none to come through your instrumentality, I 
beg of you to crawl under some seat in the back corner, 
and never come out, lest the redeemed get their eyes on 
you, and some one cry out, “ That is the man who never 
lifted hand or voice for the redemption of his fellows! 
Look at him, all heaven!” Better be busy. Better pick 
the gunlock, and bite the cartridge, and be sure the caps 
are good. Better put the plow in deep. Better say what 
you have to say quickly. Better cry the alarm. Better 
fall on your knees. Better lay hold with both hands. 
What you now leave undone for Christ will forever be 
undone. “ This year thou shalt die /” 

In view of the probabilities mentioned, I advise all the- 
men and women not ready for eternity to get ready. If 
the text be true, you have no time to talk about non-es¬ 
sentials, asking why God let sin come into the world; or 
whether the book of Jonah is inspired; or who Melchise- 
dec was; or what about the eternal decrees. If you are 
as near eternity as some of you seem to be, there is no 
time for any thing but the question, “ How shall I escape 
wrath and win heaven?” The drowning man, when a 
plank is thrown him, stops not to ask what saw-mill made 
it, or whether it is oak or cedar, or who threw it. The 
moment it is thrown, he clutches it. If this year you 
are to die, there is no time for any thing but immediate¬ 
ly laying hold on God. 

It is high time to get out of your sins. You say, “ I 
have committed no great transgressions.” But are you 
not aware that your life has been sinful? The snow 
comes down on the Alps flake by flake, and it is so light 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


' 341 


that you may hold it on the tip of your finger without 
feeling any weight; but the flakes gather; they com¬ 
pact, until some day a traveler’s foot starts the slide, and 
it goes down in an avalanche, crushing to death the vil¬ 
lagers. So the sins of your youth, and the sins of your 
manhood, and tlie sins of your womanhood may have 
seemed only^ slight inaccuracies or trifling divergences 
from the right—so slight that they are hardly worth 
mentioning, but they have been piling up and piling up, 
packing together and packing together, until they make 
a mountain of sin, and one more step of your foot in the 
wrong direction may slide down upon you an avalanche 
of ruin and condemnation. 

A man crossing a desolate and lonely plateau, a hun¬ 
gry wolf took after him. He brought his gun to his 
shoulder, and took aim, and the wolf howled with pain, 
and the cry woke up a pack of wolves, and they came 
ravening out of the forest from all sides, and horribly 
devoured him. Thou art the man. Some one sin of 
your life summoning on all the rest, they surround thy 
soul, and make the night of thy sin terrible with the as¬ 
sault of their bloody muzzles. Oh the unpardoned, clam¬ 
oring, ravening, all-devouring sins of thy lifetime! Ke- 
pent of them, or perish! 

A maniac was found pacing along the road with a 
torch in one hand and a pail of water in the other, and 
some one asked him what he meant to do with them. He 
answered, “ With this torch I mean to burn down heav¬ 
en, and with this water I mean to put out. the fires of 
hell.” He was a maniac. He could do the one thing 
just as well as he could do the other. There is no such 
thing as putting out the sorrows of the self-destroyed. 


342 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


They bum on forever. Fly for your life, while flight is 
possible. No time to lose if you want to escape your 
sins, for “ this year thou shalt die .” 

Let me announce that Christ, the Lord, stands ready 
to save any man who w r ants to be saved. He waited for 
you all last year, and all the year before, and all your 
life. He has waited for you with blood on his brow, 
and tears in his eye, and two outstretched, mangled hands 
of love. 

You come from your store, and find that your house 
has been on fire, and that your neighbor put it out. You 
thank him. You say, “ I shall never forget this. When 
you w T ant any thing, come to me.” But my Lord makes 
an attempt to put out the eternal consuming of your 
soul, and you give him no thanks, and wish him off the 
premises. You come home some night and find the 
mark of muddy feet on your front steps. You hasten 
in, and find an excited group around your child. He 
fell into a pond, and had it not been for a brave lad, 
who plunged in and brought him out, and carried him 
home to be resuscitated, you would have been childless. 
You feel that you can not do enough for the rescuer. 
You throw your arms around him. You offer him any 
compensation. You say to him, “ Any thing that you 
want shall be yours. I will never cease to be grateful.” 
But my Lord Jesus sees your soul drowning in wrathful 
waves of death, and attempts to bring it ashore, and you 
not only refuse him thanks, but stand on the beach and 
say, “ Drop that soul! If I want it saved, I will save it 
myself.” 

I wish you might know what a job Jesus undertook 
when he carried your case to Calvary. They crowded 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


343 


liim to the wall. They struck him. They spit on him. 
They kicked him. They cuffed him. They scoffed at 
him. They scourged him. They murdered him. Blood! 
blood! As he stoops down to lift you up, the crimson 
drops upon you from his brow, from his side, from his 
hands. Do you not feel the warm current on your face ? 
Oh dying sinner, for thee the hunger, the thirst, the thorn¬ 
sting, the suffocation, the darkness, the groan, the sweat, 
the struggle, the death! 

A great plague came in Marseilles. The doctors held 
a consultation, and decided that a corpse must he dis¬ 
sected, or they would never know how to stop the plague. 
A Dr. Guyon said, “ To-morrow morning I will proceed 
to a dissection.” He made his will; prepared for death; 
went into the hospital; dissected a body; wrote out the 
results of the dissection, and died in twelve hours. Beau¬ 
tiful self-sacrifice, you say. Our Lord Jesus looked out 
from heaven, and saw a plague-stricken race. Sin must 
be.dissected. He made his will, giving every thing to 
his people. He comes down into the reeking hospital of 
earth. He lays his hand to the work. Under our plague, 
he dies—the healthy for the sick, the pure for the pol¬ 
luted, the innocent for the guilty. Behold the love! Be¬ 
hold the sacrifice! Behold the rescue! 

Decide, on this first Sabbath of the year, whether or 
not you will have Jesus. He will not stand forever beg¬ 
ging for your love. With some here his plea ends right 
speedily. “ This year thou.shalt die” 

This great salvation of the Gospel I now offer to every 
man, woman, and child. You can not buy it. You can 
not earn it. A Scotch writer says that a poor woman, 
one cold winter’s day, looked through the window* of a 


344 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 


king’s conservatory, and saw a bunch of grapes hanging 
against the glass. She said, “ Oh, if I only had that 
bunch of grapes for my sick child at home!” At her 
spinning-wheel she earned a few shillings, and went to 
buy the grapes. The king’s gardener thrust her out very 
roughly, and said he had no grapes to sell. She went 
off and sold a blanket, and got some more shillings, and 
came back and tried to buy the grapes. But the gar¬ 
dener roughly assaulted her, and told her to be off. The 
king’s daughter was walking in the garden at the time, 
and she heard the excitement, and, seeing the poor wom¬ 
an, said to her, “ My father is not a merchant, to sell , but 
he is a king, and gives.” Then she reached up and, 
plucked the grapes, and dropped them into the poor wom¬ 
an’s apron. So Christ is a king, and all the fruits of his 
pardon he freely gives. They may not be bought. With¬ 
out money and without price, take this sweet cluster from 
the vineyards of God. 

I am coming to the close of my sermon. I sought for 
a text appropriate for the occasion. I thought of taking 
one in Job: “ My days fly as a weaver’s shuttleof a 
text in the Psalms: “ So teach us to number our days 
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdomof the 
prayer of the vine-dresser: “ Lord, let it alone this year 
alsobut pressed upon my attention, first of all, and 
last of all, and above all, were the words, “This year thou 
shalt die” 

Perhaps it may mean me. Though in perfect health 
now, it does not take God one week to bring down the 
strongest physical constitution. I do not want to die 
this year. We have plans and projects on foot that I 
want to see completed ; but God knows best, and he has 


A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 345 

a thousand better men than I to do the work of the Tab¬ 
ernacle and of the Free College ; and if he takes me, it 
will be well with both these institutions. I have a hope 
that, notwithstanding all my sins and wanderings, I shall, 
through the infinite mercy of my Savior, come out at the 
right place. I have nothing to brag of by way of Chris¬ 
tian experience ; but two things I have learned—my ut¬ 
ter helplessness before God, and the all-abounding grace 
of the Lord Jesus. 

If the text means some of you, my hearers, I do not 
want you to be caught unprepared. I would like to have 
you, either through money you have laid up, or a “ life 
^ insurance,” be able to leave the world feeling that your 
family need not become paupers. I would like to have 
your soul fitted out for eternity, so that if, any morning, 
or noon, or evening, or night of these three hundred and 
sixty-five days, death should look in and ask, “Are you 
ready ?” you might, with an outburst of Christian tri¬ 
umph, answer, “ Ay, ay! all ready.” 

I know not what our last words may be. Lord Ches¬ 
terfield prided himself on his politeness, and said, in his 
last moment, “ Give Dayroles a chair.” Dr. Adam, a 
dying schoolmaster, said, “ It grows dark. The boys 
may dismiss.” Lord Tenterden, supposing himself on 
the bench of a court-room, said, in his last moment, 
“Gentlemen of the jury, you will now consider your ver¬ 
dict.” A dying playactor said,“ Drop the curtain. The 
farce is played out.” I would rather have, for my dying 
words, those of one greater than Chesterfield, or Dr. 
Adam, or Lord Tenterden: “lam now ready to be of¬ 
fered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have 
P 2 


346 A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. 

kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
Judge, shall give me.” 

This is the last January to some who are present. 
You have entered the year, but you will not close it. 
Within these twelve months your eyes will shut for the 
last sleep. Other hands will plant the Christmas-tree, 
and giv'e the New-Year’s congratulations. As a procla¬ 
mation of joy to some, and as a matter of alarm to oth¬ 
ers, I leave in your ears these five short words of one 
syllable each, “ This yeah thou shalt die !” 


TEE TWO BIMDS. 


347 


THE TWO BIRDS. 

“And the priest shall command that one of the birds he killed in an 
earthen vessel, over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take 
it, and the cedar-wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them 
and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the run¬ 
ning water; and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from 
the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the 
living bird loose into the open field .”—Leviticus xiv., 5-7. 


HE Old Testament, to very many people, is-a great 



slaughter-house strewn with the blood, and bones, 
and horns, and hoofs of butchered animals. It offends 
their sight; it disgusts their taste; it actually nauseates 
the stomach. But to the intelligent Christian the Old 
Testament is a magnificent corridor through which Jesus 
advances. As he appears at the other end of the corri¬ 
dor, we can only see the outlines of his character; com¬ 
ing nearer, we can descry the features. But when, at 
last, he steps upon the platform of the New Testament, 
amid the torches of evangelists and apostles, the orches¬ 
tras of heaven announce him with a blast of minstrelsy 
that wakes up Bethlehem at midnight. 

There were a great many cages of birds brought down 
to Jerusalem for sacrifice—sparrows, and pigeons, and 
turtle-doves. I can hear them now, whistling, caroling, 
and singing all around about the Temple. When a leper 
was to be cured of his leprosy, in order to his cleansing 
two of these birds were taken; one of them was slain over 
an earthen vessel of running water-—that is, clear, fresh 


348 


TIIE TWO BIRDS. 


water, and then the bird was killed. Another bird was 
then taken, tied to a hyssop-branch, and plunged by the 
priest into the blood of the first bird; and then, with this 
hyssop-branch, bird-tipped, the priest would sprinkle the 
leper seven times, then untie the bird from the hyssop- 
branch, and it would go soaring into the heavens. 

Now open your eyes wide, my dear brethren and sis¬ 
ters, and see that that first bird meant Jesus, and that 
that second bird means your own soul. 

There is nothing more suggestive than a caged bird. 
In the down of its breast you can see the glow of south¬ 
ern climes; in the sparkle of its eye you can see the flash 
of distant seas; in its voice you can hear the song it 
learned in the wildwood. It is a child of the sky in cap¬ 
tivity. Now the dead bird of my text, captured from 
the air, suggests the Lord Jesus , who came down from 
the realms of light and glory . lie once stood in the 
sunlight of heaven. He was the favorite of the land. 
He was the King’s son. Whenever a victory was gain¬ 
ed, or a throne set up, he was the first to hear it. He 
could not walk incognito along the- streets, for all heaven 
knew him. For eternal ages he had dwelt amid the 
mighty populations of heaven. No holiday had ever 
dawned on the city when he was absent. Fie was not 
like an earthly prince, occasionally issuing from a palace 
heralded by a troop of clanking horse-guards. No ; he 
was greeted every where as a brother, and all heaven was 
perfectly at home with him. 

But one day there came word to the palace that an in¬ 
significant island was in rebellion, and was cutting itself 
to pieces with anarchy. I hear an angel say, “ Let it per¬ 
ish. The King’s realm is vast enough without the island. 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


349 


The tributes to the King are large enough without that. 
We can spare it.” “ Not so,” said the prince, the King’s 
son; and I see him push out one day, under the protest 
of a great company. He starts straight for the rebellious 
island. He lands amid the execrations of the inhabit¬ 
ants, that grow in violence until the malice of earth has 
smitten him, and the spirits of the lost world put their 
black wings over his dying head, and shut the sun out. 
The hawks and vultures swooped upon this dove of the 
text, until head, and breast, and feet ran blood—until, un¬ 
der the flocks and beaks of darkness, the poor thing per¬ 
ished. No wonder it was a bird that was taken and 
slain over an earthen vessel of running water. It was a 
child of the skies. It typified him who came down from 
heaven in agony and blood to save our souls. Blessed 
be his glorious name forever! 

I notice also, in my text, that the bird that was slain 
was a clean bird. The text demanded that it should be. 
The raven was never sacrificed, nor the cormorant, nor 
the vulture. It must be a clean bird, says the text; and 
it suggests the pure Jesus—the holy Jesus. Although he 
spent his boyhood in the worst village on earth, although 
blasphemies were poured into his ear enough to have 
poisoned any one else, he stands before the world a per¬ 
fect Christ. Herod was cruel, Henry VIII. was unclean, 
William III. was treacherous; but point out a fault of our 
King. Answer me, ye boys who knew him on the streets 
of Nazareth. Answer me, ye miscreants who saw him 
die. The skeptical tailors have tried for eighteen hun¬ 
dred years to find out one hole in this seamless garment, 
but they have not found it. The most ingenious and 
eloquent infidel of this day, in the last line of his book, 


350 


THE TWO BIRDS . 


all of which denounces Christ, says, “All ages must pro¬ 
claim that among the sons of men there is none greater 
than Jesus.” So let this bird of the text be clean—its 
feet fragrant with the dew that it pressed, its beak carry¬ 
ing sprig of thyme and frankincense, its feathers washed 
in summer showers. O thou spotless Son of God, im¬ 
press us with thy innocence! 

“Thou lovely source of true delight, 

Whom I, unseen, adore, 

Unveil thy beauties to my sight, 

That I may love thee more.” 

I remark, also, in regard to this first bird, mentioned in 
the text, that it was a defenseless bird. When the eagle 
is assaulted, with its iron beak it strikes like a bolt against 
its adversary. This was a dove or a sparrow, we do not 
know just which. Take the dove, or pigeon, in your 
hand, and the pecking of its beak on your hand makes 
you laugh at the feebleness of its assault. The reindeer, 
after it is down, may fell you with its antlers. The ox, 
after you think it is dead, may break your leg in its 
death struggle. The harpooned whale, in its last agony, 
may crush you in the coil of the unwinding rope. But 
this was a dove or a sparrow—perfectly harmless, per¬ 
fectly defenseless—type of Him who said,“I have trod 
the wine-press alone, and there was none to help.” Hone 
to help! The murderers have it all their own w r ay. 
Where was the soldier in the Homan regiment w r ho 
swung his sword in the defense of the Divine Martyr ? 
Did they put one drop of oil on his gashed feet? Was 
there one, in all that crowd, manly and generous enough 
to stand up for him ? W r ere the miscreants at the cross 
any more interfered with in their w T ork of spiking him 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


351 


fast than the carpenter in his shop driving a nail through 
a pine hoard ? The women cried, but there was no halm 
in their tears. None to help! none to help! O my 
Lord Jesus, none to help! The wave of anguish came 
up to the arch of his feet—came up to his knee—floated 
to his waist—rose to his chin—swept to his temples, yet 
none to help! Ten thousand times ten thousand angels 
in the sky, ready at command to plunge into the bloody 
affray, and strike back the hosts of darkness, yet none to 
help! none to help! 

Oh, this dove of the text, in its last moment, clutched 
not with angry talons. It plunged not a savage beak. 
It was a dove — helpless, defenseless. None to help! 
none to help! 

As, after a severe storm in the morning, you go out, 
and find birds dead on the snow, so this dead bird of the 
text makes me think of that awful storm that swept the 
earth on Crucifixion day, when the wrath of God, and 
the malice of man, and the fury of devils wrestled be¬ 
neath the three crosses. As we sang just now, 

“ Well might the sun in darkness hide, 

And shut his glories in, 

When Christ, the mighty Maker, died 
Eor man, the creature’s sin.” 

But I come now to speak of this second bird of the 
text. We must not let that fly away until we have ex¬ 
amined it. The priest took the second bird, tied it to 
the hyssop-branch, and then plunged it in the blood of 
the first bird. Ah! that is my soul, plunged for cleans¬ 
ing in the Savior’s blood. There is not enough water in 
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to wash away our small¬ 
est sin. Sin is such an'outrage on God’s universe that 


352 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


nothing but blood can atone for-it. You know the life 
is in the blood, and as the life had been forfeited, noth¬ 
ing could buy it back but blood. What was it that was 
sprinkled on the door-posts wdien the destroying angel 
went through the land ? Blood. What was it that went 
streaming from the altar of ancient sacrifice ? Blood. 
What was it that the priest carried into the holy of ho¬ 
lies, making intercession for the people ? Blood. What 
was it that Jesus sweat in the garden of Gethsemane ? 
Great drops of blood. What does the wine in the sacra¬ 
mental c.up signify ? Blood. What makes the robes of 
the righteous in heaven so fair? They are washed in 
the blood of the Lamb. What is it that cleanses all our 
pollution? The blood of Jesus Christ, that cleanseth 
from all sin. 

I hear somebody saying, “ I do not like such a san¬ 
guinary religion as that.” Do you think it is very wise 
for the patient to tell the doctor, “ I don’t like the medi¬ 
cine you have given me ?” If he wants to be cured, he 
had better take the medicine. My Lord God has offered 
us a balm, and it is very foolish for us to say, “ I don’t 
like that balm.” We had better take it, and be saved. 
But you do not oppose the shedding of blood in other 
directions and for other ends. If a hundred thousand 
men go out to battle for their country, and have to lay 
down their lives for free institutions, is there any thing 
ignoble about that ? No, you say; “ glorious sacrifice 
rather.” And is there any thing ignoble in the idea that 
the Lord Jesus Christ, by the shedding of his blood, de¬ 
livered not only one land, but all lands and all ages, from 
bondage, introducing men by millions and millions into 
the liberty of the sons of God! Is there any thing ig¬ 
noble about that ? 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


353 


As this second bird of the text was plunged in the 
blood of the first bird, so we must be washed in the 
blood of Christ, or go polluted forever. 

‘ ‘ Let the water and the blood, 

From thy side a healing flood, 

Be of sin the double cure, 

Save from earth, and make me pure.” 

I notice now that as soon as this second bird was dip¬ 
ped in the blood of the first bird, the priest unloosened 
it and it was free—free of wing and free of foot. It 
could whet its beak on any tree-branch it chose. It could 
peck the grapes of any vineyard it chose. It was free: 
a type of our souls after we have washed in the blood 
of the Lamb. We can go where we will. We can do 
what we will. You say, “ Had you not better qualify 
that ?” Ho; for I remember that in conversion the will 
is changed, and the man will not will that which is wrong. 
There is no straight jacket in our religion. A state of 
sin is a state of slavery. A state of pardon is a state of 
emancipation. The hammer of God’s grace knocks the 
hopples from the feet, knocks the handcuffs from the 
wrist, opens the door into a landscape all ashimmer with 
fountains and abloom with gardens. It is freedom. 

If a man has become a Christian, he is no more afraid 
of Sinai. The thunders of Sinai do not frighten him. 
Y ou have, on some August day, seen two thunder-show¬ 
ers meet. One cloud from this mountain, and another 
cloud from that mountain, coming nearer and nearer 
together, and responding to each other, crash to crash, 
thunder to thunder, boom! boom! And then the clouds 
break and the torrents pour, and they are emptied per¬ 
haps into the very same stream that comes down so 


354 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


red at your feet, that it seems as if all the carnage of 
the storm-battle has been emptied into it. So in this 
Bible I see two storms gather, one above Sinai, the other 
above Calvary, and they respond one to the other—flash 
to flash, thunder to thunder, boom! boom ! Sinai thun¬ 
ders, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die /” Calvary re¬ 
sponds, “ Save them from going down to the pit , for I 
have found a ransom .” Sinai says, “ Woe ! woe /” Cal¬ 
vary answers, “Mercy! mercy W and then the clouds 
burst, and empty their treasures into one torrent, and it 
comes flowing to our feet, red with the carnage of our 
Lord—in which, if thy soul be plunged, like the bird in 
the text, it shall go forth free—fkee ! Oh, I wish my 
people to understand this: that when a man becomes a 
Christian he does not become a slave, but that he be¬ 
comes a free man; that he has larger liberty after he be¬ 
comes a child of God than before he became a child of 
God. General Fisk says that he once stood at a slave- 
block where an old Christian minister w T as being sold. 
The auctioneer said of him, “ What bid do I hear for this 
man ? lie is a very good kind of a man; he is a minis¬ 
ter.” Somebody said “ twenty dollars” (he was very old 
and not worth much); somebody else “ twenty-five”— 
“thirty” — “thirty-five”—“forty.” The aged Christian 
minister began to tremble; he had expected to be able 
to buy his own freedom, and he had just seventy dollars, 
and expected with the seventy dollars to get free. As 
the bids ran up the old man trembled more and more. 
“ Forty”-—“ forty-five”—“ fifty”—“ fifty-five”—“ sixty”— 
“sixty-five.” The old man cried out “ seventy P He 
was afraid they would outbid him. The men around 
were transfixed. Nobody dared bid; and the auctioneer 
struck him dowm to himself—done—done ! 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


355 


But by reason of sin we are poorer than that African. 
We can not buy our own deliverance. The voices of 
death are bidding for us, and they bid us in, and they 
bid us down.. But the Lord Jesus Christ comes and 
says, “ I will buy that man; I bid for him my Bethlehem 
manger; I bid for him my hunger on the mountain; I 
bid for him my aching head; I bid for him my faint¬ 
ing heart; I bid for him all my wounds.” A voice from 
the throne of God says, “ It is enough! Jesus has bought 
him.” Bought with a price. The purchase complete. 
It is done. 

‘ £ The great transaction’s done; 

I am my Lord’s, and he is mine. 

He drew me, and I followed on, 

Charmed to confess the voice divine.” 

Why, is not a man free when he gets rid of his sins ? 
The sins of the tongue gone; the sins of action gone; the 
sins of the mind gone. All the transgressions of thirty, 
forty, fifty, seventy years gone—no more in the soul than 
the malaria that floated in the atmosphere a thousand 
years ago; for when my Lord Jesus pardons a man he 
pardons him, and there is no half-way work about it. 

Here I see a beggar going along the turnpike road. 
He is worn out with disease. He is stiff in the joints. 
He is ulcered all over. He has rheum in his eyes, He 
is sick and wasted. He is in rags. Every time he puts 
down his swollen feet, he cries “ Oh! the pain!” He 
sees a fountain by the roadside under a tree, and he 
crawls up to that fountain and says, “ I must wash. 
Here I may cool my ulcers. Here I may get rested.” 
He stoops down, and scoops up in the palm of his hands 
enough water to slake his thirst; and that is all gone. 


356 


TEE TWO BIRDS. 


Then he stoops down, and begins to wash his eyes; and 
the rheum is all gone. Then he puts in his swollen feet, 
and the swelling is gone. Then, willing no longer to be 
only half cured, he plunges in, and his whole body is 
laved in the stream, and he gets upon the bank well. 
Meantime the owner of the mansion up yonder comes 
down, walking through the ravine with his only son, and 
he sees the bundle of rags, and asks, “ Whose rags are 
these ?” A voice from the fountain says, “Those are my 
rags.” Then says the master to his son, “ Go up to the 
house, and get the best new suit you can find, and bring 
it down.” And he brings down the clothes, and the beg¬ 
gar is clothed in them, and he looks around and says, “ I 
was filthy, but now I am clean. I was ragged, but now 
I am robed. I was blind, but now I see. Glory be to 
the owner of that mansion; and glory be to that son w T ho 
brought me that new suit of clothes; and glory be to 
this fountain, where I have washed, and where all who 
will may wash and be clean!” 

Where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound. 
The bird has been dipped, now let it fly away. 

The next thing I notice about this bird, when it was 
loosened (and this is the main idea), is, that it flew away . 
Which way did it go ? When you let a bird loose from 
your grasp, which way does it fly ? Up. What are 
wings for ? To fly with. Is there any thing in the sug¬ 
gestion of the direction taken by that bird to indicate 
which way we ought to go ? 

“Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, 

Thy better portion trace ; 

Rise from transitory things 
To heaven, thy native place.” 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


357 


We should be going heavenward. That is the sugges¬ 
tion. But I know that we have a great many drawbacks. 
You had them this morning, perhaps. You had them 
yesterday, or the day before; and although you want to 
be going heavenward, you are constantly discouraged. 
But I suppose when that bird went out of the priest’s 
hands it went by inflections—-sometimes stooping. A 
bird does not shoot directly up, but this is the motion of 
a bird. So the soul soars toward God, rising up in love, 
and sometimes depressed by trial. It does not always go 
in the direction it would like to go. But the main course 
is right. There is one passage in the Bible which I quote 
oftener to myself than any other: “He knoweth our 
frame, and he remembereth that we are dust.” 

There is a legend in Iceland which says that when 
Jesus was a boy, playing with his comrades one Sabbath 
day, he made birds of clay; and as these birds of clay 
were standing upon the ground, an old Sadducee came 
along, and he was disgusted at the sport, and dashed the 
birds to pieces; but the legend says that Jesus waved 
his hand above the broken birds, and they took wing, 
and went singing heavenward. Of course that is a fable 
among the Icelanders; but it is not a fable that we are 
dust, and that, the hand of divine grace waved over us 
once, we go singing toward the skies. 

I wish, my friends, that we could live in a higher at¬ 
mosphere. If a man’s whole life-object is to make dol¬ 
lars, he will be running against those who are making 
dollars. If his whole object is to get applause, he will 
run against those who are seeking applause. But if he 
rises higher than that, he will not be interrupted in his 
flight heavenward. Why does that flock of birds, float- 


358 


TIIE TWO BIRDfi. 


ing up against the bine sky so high that you can hardly 
see them, not change its course for spire or tower ? They 
are above all obstructions. So we would not have so 
often to change our Christian course if we lived in a 
higher atmosphere, nearer Christ, nearer the throne of 
God. 

Oh ye who have been washed in the blood of Christ— 
ye who have been loosed from the hyssop-branch—start 
heavenward. It may be to some of you a long flight. 
Temptations may dispute your way; storms of bereave¬ 
ment and trouble may strike your soul; but God will 
see you through. Build not on the earth. Set your af¬ 
fections on things in heaven, not on things on earth. 
This is a perishing world. Its flowers fade. Its foun¬ 
tains dry up. Its promises cheat. Set your affections 
upon Christ and heaven. I rejoice, my dear brethren 
and sisters in Christ, that the flight will, after a while, be 
ended. Hot always beaten of the storm. Hot always 
going on weary wings. There is a warm dovecot of 
eternal rest w T here we shall find a place of comfort, to 
the everlasting joy of our souls. Oh, they are going up 
all the time—going up from this church—going up from 
all the families and from all the churches of the land— 
the weary doves seeking rest in a dovecot. 

During the last week I sat by the death-bed of my 
sister Mary. Her soul has for many days been strug¬ 
gling to get loose. Oh that now, while I speak, the chain 
might break! There is only one thing that can cure her. 
All the doctors have failed. Oh that Jesus would take 
the case in his hands, and with the quick salve of death 
cure the cancer in the breast. Mary and I were born 
only two years apart. Our childhood was one. Was 


THE TWO BIRDS. 


359 


there any thing in all the round of childish games that 
we- did not play ? When she threw off her bonnfet, and 
I threw off my hat for the race, how we sped down the 
lane! I shut my eyes, for it seems a dream. How we 
made the haymows and the meadows ring with the rack¬ 
et ! She was sunshine. She always was sunshine. She 
is on her way to everlasting sunshine. As, two or three 
days ago, I sat on her bedside, she said, “ Oh, Dewitt, no 
doubts, no fears! What a mistake I would have made if 
I had waited to get ready until now! Why, with this 
hard lump in my breast, I could not have got ready.” 
Lord Jesus,is it not enough? Come! I beckon thee to 
her bedside. Put an end to her anguish. Why does 
thy chariot wait so long? Let the charioteer take his 
seat, and the wheels whirl, and the King halt at the gate 
of the country parsonage. Ko one can touch her with¬ 
out hurting her, but, Lord Jesus, thou canst. Lift her in, 
and then away; and may God have pity upon the mother¬ 
less little ones left behind! 

Oh that in that good land we may all meet when our 
trials are over. I beseech you, by the God of your sister 
(for who has not a sister in heaven)—by the God of your 
sister, I beseech you to turn and live. We can not get into 
their blessed presence, who are in glory, unless we have 
been cleansed in . the same blood that washed their sins 
aw^ay. I know this is true of all who have gone in, that 
they were plunged in the blood, that they were unloosed 
from the hyssop-branch. Then they went singing into 
glory. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for if 
they escaped not who refuse him that spake on earth, 
how much more shall not we escape if we turn away 
from him that speaketh from heaven ? ; 


360 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 

“ They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever 
and ever .”—Daniel xii., 3. 

E VERY man has a thousand roots and a thousand 
branches. His roots reach down through all the 
earth; his branches spread through all the heavens. He 
speaks with voice, with eye, with hand, with foot. His 
silence often is thunder, and his life is an anthem or a 
'doxology. There is no such thing as negative influence. 
We are all positive in the place we occupy, making the 
world better or making it worse, on the Lord’s side or on 
the devil’s, making up reasons for our blessedness or ban¬ 
ishment ; and we have already done a mighty work in 
peopling heaven or hell. I hear people tell of what they 
are going to do. A man who has burned down a city 
might as well talk of some evil that he expects to do, or 
a man who has saved an empire might as well talk of 
some good that he expects to do. By the force of your 
evil influence you have already consumed infinite values, 
or you have, by the pow T er of a right influence, w r on whole 
kingdoms for God. 

About the future sorrow of those who have wrought 
infamously, I speak not now; but of the reward of those 
who turn many to righteousness I will speak, if God will 
help me. 

It would be absurd for me to stand here, and, by elab¬ 
orate argument, prove that the world is off the track. 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 361 

You might as well stand at the foot of an embankment, 
amid the wreck of a capsized rail-train, proving by elab¬ 
orate argument that something is out of order. Adam 
tumbled over the eilibankment sixty centuries ago, and 
the whole race, in one long train, has gone on tumbling 
in the same direction. Crash! crash ! The only ques¬ 
tion now is, By what leverage can the crushed thing be 
lifted ? By what hammer may the fragments be recon¬ 
structed ? 

I want to show you how we may turn many to right¬ 
eousness, and what will be our future pay for so doing. 

First: We may turn them by the charm of a right 
example. A child, coming from a filthy home, was 
taught at school to wash its face. It went home so much 
improved in appearance that its mother washed her face. 
And when the father of the household came home, and 
saw the improvement in domestic appearance, he washed 
his face. The neighbors happening in, saw the change, 
and tried the same experiment, until all that street was 
purified, and the next street copied its example, and the 
whole city felt the result of one school-boy washing his 
face. That is a fable, by which we set forth that the 
best way to get the world washed of its sins and pollu¬ 
tion is to have our own heart and life cleansed and puri¬ 
fied. A man with grace in his heart, and Christian 
cheerfulness in his face, and holy consistency in his be¬ 
havior, is a perpetual sermon; and the sermon differs 
from others in that it has but one head, and the longer it 
runs, the better. There are honest men who walk dowrn 
Wall Street, making the teeth of iniquity chatter. There 
are happy men who go into a sick-room, and, by a look, 
help the broken bone- knit, and the excited nerves drop 

Q 


362 


AS THE STABS FOREVER. 


to calm beating. There are jpure men whose presence 
silences the tongue of uncleanness. The mightiest agent 
of good on earth is a consistent Christian. I like the 
Bible folded between lids of cloth, of calf-skin, or of mo¬ 
rocco, but I like it better when, in the shape of a man, it 
goes out into the world—a Bible illustrated. Courage is 
beautiful to read about; but rather would I see a man 
with all the world against him confident as though all 
the world were for him. Patience is beautiful to read 
about; but rather would I see a buffeted soul calmly 
waiting for the time of deliverance. Faith is beautiful 
to read about; but rather would I find a man in the 
midnight walking straight on as though he saw every 
thing. Oh, how many souls have been turned to God by 
the charm of a right example ! 

When, in the Mexican War, the troops were wavering, 
a general rose in his stirrups and dashed into the enemy’s 
lines, shouting, “Men, follow /” They, seeing his cour¬ 
age and disposition, dashed on after him, and gained the 
victory. What men want to rally them for God is an 
example to lead them. All your commands to others to 
advance amount to nothing so long as you stay behind. 
To affect them aright, you need to start for heaven your¬ 
self, looking back only to give the stirring cry of Men, 
follow ! 

Again : We may turn many to righteousness by pray¬ 
er. There is no such detective as prayer, for no one can 
hide away from it. It puts its hand on the shoulder of 
a man ten thousand miles off. It alights on a ship mid- 
Atlantic. The little child can not understand the law 
of electricity, or how the telegraphic operator, by touch¬ 
ing the instrument here, may dart a message under the 


AS TEE STARS FOREVER. 


363 


sea to another continent; nor can we, with our smhll in¬ 
tellect, understand how the touch of a Christian’s prayer 
shall instantly strike a soul on the other side of the earth. 
You take ship and go to some other country, and get 
there at eleven o’clock in the morning. You telegraph 
to New York, and the message gets here at six o’clock in 
the same morning. In other words, it seems to arrive 
here five hours before it started. Like that is prayer. 
God says, “Before they call, I will hear.” To overtake 
a loved one on the road, you may spur up a lathered 
steed until he shall outrace the one that brought the 
news to Ghent; but a prayer shall catch it at one gallop. 
A boy running away from home may take the midnight 
train from the country village, and reach the sea-port in 
time to gain the ship that sails on the morrow; but a 
mother’s prayer will be on the deck to meet him, and in 
the hammock before he swings into it, and at the cap¬ 
stan before he winds the rope around it, and on the sea, 
against the sky, as the vessel plows on toward it. There 
is a mightiness in prayer. George Muller prayed a com¬ 
pany of poor boys together, and then he prayed up an 
asylum in which they* might be sheltered. He turned 
his face toward Edinburg and prayed, and there came 
a thousand pounds. He turned his face toward London 
and prayed, and there came a thousand pounds. He 
turned his face toward Dublin and prayed, and there 
came a thousand pounds. The breath of Elijah’s prayer 
blew all the clouds off the sky, and it was dry weather. 
The breath of Elijah’s prayer blew all the clouds togeth¬ 
er, and it was wet weather. Prayer, in Daniel’s time, 
walked the cave as a lion-tamer. It reached up, and 
took the sun by its golden bit, and stopped it. We have 


364 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 


all y6t to try the full power of prayer. The time will 
come when the American Church will pray with its face 
toward the west, and all the prairies and inland cities 
will surrender to God; and will pray with face toward 
the sea, and all the islands and ships will become Chris¬ 
tian. Parents who have wayward sons will get down on 
their knees and say, “ Lord, send my boy home,” and the 
boy in Canton shall get right up from the gaming-table, 
and go down to the wharf to find out which ship starts 
first for America. 

Not one of us knows yet how to pray. All we have 
done as yet has only been pottering, and guessing, and 
experimenting. A boy gets hold of his father’s saw and 
hammer, and tries to make something, but it is a poor 
affair that he makes. The father comes and takes the 
same saw and hammer, and builds the house or the ship. 
In the childhood of our Christian faith, we make but 
poor work with these weapons of prayer; but when we 
come to the stature of men in Christ Jesus, then, under 
these implements, the temple of God will rise, and the 
world’s redemption will be launched. God cares not for 
the length of our prayers, or the number of our prayers, 
or the beauty of our prayers, or the place of our prayers; 
but it is th % faith in them that tells. Believing prayer 
soars higher than the.lark ever sang; plunges deeper 
than diving-bell ever sank; darts quicker than lightning 
ever flashed. Though we have used only the back of 
this weapon instead of the edge, what marvels have been 
wrought! If saved, we are all the captives of some ear¬ 
nest prayer. Would God that, in desire for the rescue 
of souls, we might in prayer lay hold of the resources of 
the Lord omnipotent. 


AS THE STABS FOREVER . 


365 


We may turn many to righteousness by Christian ad¬ 
monition. Do not wait until you can make a formal 
speech. Address the one next to you. You will not go 
home alone to-night. Between the Tabernacle and your 
own house, you may decide the eternal destiny of an im¬ 
mortal spirit. Just one sentence may do the work. Just 
one question. Just one look. The formal talk that be¬ 
gins with a sigh and ends with a canting snuffle is not 
what is wanted, but the heart-throb of a man in dead 
earnest. There is not a soul on earth that you may not 
bring to God if you rightly go at it. They said Gibral¬ 
tar could not be taken. It is a rock, sixteen hundred 
feet high and three miles long. But the English and 
Dutch did take it. Artillery, and sappers and miners, 
and fleets pouring out volleys of death, and thousands of 
men, reckless of danger, can do any thing. The stout¬ 
est heart of sin, though it be rock, and surrounded by an 
ocean of transgression, under Christian bombardment 
may be made to hoist the flag of redemption. 

But is all this admonition, and prayer, and Christian 
work for nothing % My text promises to all the faithful 
eternal lustre. “ They that turn many to righteousness 
shall shine as the stars forever and ever.” 

As stars, the redeemed have a borrowed light. What 
makes Mars, and Yenus, and Jupiter so luminous ? When 
the sun throws down his torch in the heavens, the stars 
pick up the scattered brands, and hold them in procession 
as the queen of the night advances; so all Christian 
workers, standing around the throne, wdll shine in the 
light borrowed from the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus in 
their faces, Jesus in their songs, Jesus in their triumph. 
Christ left heaven once for a tour of redemption on earth, 


366 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 


yet the glorified ones knew he would come back again. 
But let him abdicate his throne, and go away to stay for¬ 
ever, the music would stop; the congregation disperse; 
the temples of God be darkened; the rivers of light stag¬ 
nate ; and every chariot w T ould become a hearse, and ev¬ 
ery bell would toll, and there would not be room on the 
liill-sides to bury the dead of the great metropolis, for 
there would be pestilence in lieayen. But Jesus lives, 
and so all the redeemed live with him. lie shall recog- 
nize them as his comrades in earthly toil, and remember 
what they did for the honor of his name, and for the 
spread of his kingdom. All their prayers, and tears, and 
work will rise before him as he looks into their faces, 
and he wfill divide his kingdom with them; his peace— 
their peace; his holiness—their holiness; his joy—their 
joy. The glory of the central throne reflected from the 
surrounding thrones, the last spot of sin struck from the 
Christian orb, and the entire nature a-tremble and a-flash 
with light, they shall shine as the stars forever and ever. 

Again : Christian workers shall be like the stars in the 
fact that they have a light independent of each other . 
Look up at night, and see each world show its distinct 
glory. It is not like the conflagration, in which you can 
not tell where one flame stops and another begins. Hep- 
tune, Herschel, and Mercury are as distinct as if each one 
of them were the only star; so our individualism will 
not be lost in heaven. A great multitude—yet each one 
as observable, as distinctly recognized, as greatly cele¬ 
brated, as if in all the space, from gate to gate, and from 
hill to hill, he were the only inhabitant: no mixing up 
— no mob — no indiscriminate rush ; each Christian 
worker standing out illustrious—all the story of earthly 


AS THE STABS FOREVER. %q>j 

achievement adhering to each one; his self-denials, and 
pains, and services, and victories published. Before men 
went out to the last war, the orators told them that they 
would all be remembered by their country, and their 
names be commemorated in poetry and in song; but go 
to the grave-yard in Richmond, and you will find there 
six thousand graves, over each one of which is the in¬ 
scription “ Unknown” The world does not remember 
its heroes; but there will be no unrecognized Christian 
worker in heaven. Each one known by all; grandly 
known; known by acclamation; all the past story of 
work for God gleaming in cheek, and brow, and foot, and 
palm. They shall shine with distinct light, as the stars, 
forever and ever. 

Again: Christian workers shall shine like the stars in 
clusters. In looking up, you find the worlds in family 
circles. Brothers and sisters — they take hold of each 
other’s hands and dance in groups. Orion in a group. 
The Pleiades in a group. The solar system is only a 
company of children, with bright faces, gathered around 
one great fireplace. The worlds do not straggle off. 
They go in squadrons and fleets, sailing through im¬ 
mensity. 

So Christian workers in heaven will dwell in neigh¬ 
borhoods and clusters. I am sure that some people I 
will like in heaven a great deal better than others. Yon¬ 
der is a constellation of stately Christians. They lived on 
earth by rigid rule. They never laughed. They walked 
every hour, anxious lest they should lose their dignity. 
But they loved God; and yonder they shine in brilliant 
constellation. Yet I shall not long to get into that par¬ 
ticular group. Yonder is a constellation of small-heart- 


368 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 


ed Christians—asteroids in the eternal astronomy. While 
some souls go up from Christian battle, and blaze like 
Mars, these asteroids dart a feeble ray like Yesta. Yon¬ 
der is a constellation of martyrs, of apostles, of patri¬ 
archs. Our souls, as they go up to heaven, will seek out 
the most congenial society. Yonder is a constellation 
almost merry with the play of light. On earth they were 
full of sympathies, and songs, and tears, and raptures, 
and congratulations. When they prayed their words took 
fire; when they sang, the tune could not hold them; 
when they wept over a world’s woes, they sobbed as if 
heart-broken; when they worked for Christ, they flamed 
with enthusiasm. Yonder they are—circle of light! con¬ 
stellation of joy! galaxy of fire ! Oh that you and I, by 
that grace which can transform the worst into the best, 
might at last sail in the wake of that fleet, and wheel in 
that glorious group, as the stars, forever and ever! 

Again: Christian Vorkers will shine like the stars in 
swiftness of motion. The worlds do not stop to shine. 
There are no fixed stars save as to relative position. The 
star most thoroughly fixed flies thousands of miles a min¬ 
ute. The astronomer, using his telescope for an Alpine 
stock, leaps from world-crag to world-crag, and finds no 
star standing still. The chamois hunter has to fly to 
catch his prey, but not so swift is his game as that which 
the scientist tries to shoot through the tower of the ob¬ 
servatory. Like petrels mid-Atlantic, that seem to come 
from no shore, and be bound to no landing-place—fly¬ 
ing, fiying—so these great flocks of worlds rest not as 
they go—wing and wing—age after age—forever and 
ever. The eagle hastes to its prey, but we shall in speed 
beat the eagles. You have noticed the velocity of the 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 


369 


swift horse under whose feet the miles slip like a smooth 
ribbon, and as he' passes, the fonr hoofs strike the earth 
in such quick beat your pulses take the same vibration. 
But all these things are not swift in comparison with the 
motion of which I speak. The moon moves fifty-four 
thousand miles in a day. Yonder, Neptune flashes on 
eleven thousand miles in an hour. Yonder, Mercury 
goes one hundred and nine thousand miles an hour. So, 
like the stars, the Christian worker shall shine in swift¬ 
ness of motion. You hear now of father, or mother, or 
child sick one thousand miles away, and it takes you two 
days to get to them. You hear of some case of suffering 
that demands your immediate attention, but it takes you 
an hour to get there. Oh the joy when t you shall, in ful¬ 
filment of the text, take starry speed, and be equal to 
one hundred thousand miles an hour. Having on eartli 
got used to Christian work, you will not quit when death 
strikes you. You will only take on ihore velocity. There 
is a dying child in London, and its spirit must be taken 
up to God: you are there in an instant to do it. There 
is a young man in New York to be arrested from going 
into that gate of sin: you are there in an instant to ar¬ 
rest him. Whether with spring of foot, or stroke of wing, 
or by the force of some new law, that shall hurl you to 
the spot where you would go, I know not; but my text 
suggests velocity. All space open before you, with noth¬ 
ing to hinder you in mission of light, and love, and joy, 
you shall shine in swiftness of motion as the stars forever 
and ever. 

Again: Christian workers, like the stars, shall shine in 
magnitude. The most illiterate man knows that these 
things in the sky, looking like gilt buttons, are great 
Q 2 


AS THE STARS FOREVER. 


370 

masses of matter. To weigh them, one would think that 
it would require scales with a pillar hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of miles high, and chains hundreds of thousands of 
miles long, and at the bottom of the chains basins on ei¬ 
ther side hundreds of thousands of miles wide, and that 
then Omnipotence alone could put the mountains into 
the scales, and the hills into the balance. But puny man 
has been equal to the undertaking, and has set a little 
balance on his geometry, and weighed world against 
world. Yea, he has pulled out his measuring-line, and 
announced that Herschel is thirty-six thousand miles in 
diameter, Saturn seventy-nine thousand miles in diam¬ 
eter, and Jupiter eighty-nine thousand miles in diameter, 
and that the smallest pearl on the beach of heaven is im¬ 
mense beyond all imagination. So all they who have 
toiled for Christ on earth shall rise up to a magnitude 
of privilege, and a magnitude of strength, and a magni¬ 
tude of holiness, and a magnitude of joy; and the weak¬ 
est saint in glory become greater than all that we can 
now imagine of an archangel. 

Brethren, it doth not yet appear what we shall be. 
Wisdom that shall know every thing; wealth that shall 
possess every thing; strength that shall do every thing; 
glory that shall circumscribe every thing! We shall not 
be like a taper, set in a sick man’s wundow, or a bundle 
of sticks kindled on the beach to warm a shivering crew; 
but you must take the diameter and the circumference 
of the world if you would get any idea of the greatness 
of our estate when we shall shine as the stars forever 
and ever. 

Lastly, and coming to this point my mind almost 
breaks down under the contemplation—like the stars, all 
Christian workers shall shine in duration. The same 


AS THE* STARS FOREVER. 


371 


stars that look down upon us looked down upon the 
Chaldsean shepherds. The meteor that I saw flashing 
across the sky the other night, I wonder if it was not the 
same one that pointed down to where Jesus lay in a man¬ 
ger, and if, having pointed out his birthplace, it has ever 
since been wandering through the heavens, watching to 
see how the world would treat him. When Adam awoke 
in the garden in the cool of the day, he saw coming out 
through the dusk of the evening the same worlds that 
greeted us on our way to church to-night. 

In Independence Hall is an old cracked bell that 
sounded the signature of the Declaration of Indepen¬ 
dence. You can not ring it now; but this great chime 
of silver bells that strike in the dome of night ring out 
with as sweet a tone as wlien God swung them at the 
creation. Look up to-night, and know that the white 
lilies that bloom in all the hanging gardens of our King 
are century plants — not blooming once in a hundred 
years, but through all the centuries. 

The star at which the mariner looks to-night was the 
light by which the ships of Tarshisli were guided across 
tile Mediterranean, and the Venetian flotilla found its 
way into Lepanto. Their armor is as bright to-night as 
when, in ancient battle, the stars in their courses fought 
against Sisera. To the .ancients the stars were symbols 
of eternity. But here the figure of my text breaks down 
—not in defeat, but in the majesties of the judgment. 
The stars shall not shine forever. The Bible says they • 
shall fall like autumnal leaves. It is almost impossible 
for a man to take in a courser going a mile in three min¬ 
utes ; but God shall take in the worlds, flying a hundred 
thousand miles an hour, by one pull of his little finger. 

As, when the factory band slips at nightfall from the 


372 AS THE STARS FOREVER. 

main wheel, all the smaller wheels slacken their speed, 
and with slower and slower motion they turn until they 
come to a full stop, so this great machinery of the uni¬ 
verse, wheel within wheel, making revolution of appal¬ 
ling speed, shall, by the touch of God’s hand, slip the 
band of present law, and slacken, and stop. That is what 
will be the matter with the mountains. The chariots in 
which they ride shall halt so suddenly that the kings 
shall be thrown out. Star after star shall be carried out 
to burial amid funeral torches of burning worlds. Con¬ 
stellations shall throw ashes on their head, and all up and 
down the highways of space there shall be mourning, 
mourning, mourning, because the worlds are dead. But 
the Christian workers shall never quit their thrones— 
they shall reign forever and ever. If, by some invasion 
from hell, the attempt were made to carry them off into 
captivity from heaven, the souls they have saved would 
rally for their defense, and all the angels of God would 
strike with their sceptres, and the redeemed, on white 
horses of victory, would ride down the foe, and all the 
steep of the sky would resound with the crash of the 
overwhelmed cohorts tumbled headlong out of heaven. 

Safe forever—all Christian workers. No toil shall fa¬ 
tigue them; no hostility overcome them; no pain pierce 
them ; no night shadow them. Forever the river of joy 
flows on; forever the jubilee progresses. The Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to 
9 living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes. 

But none of these things for the idlers, the drones, the 
stumbling-blocks. They who have, by prayer, and exam¬ 
ple, and Christian work, turned many to righteousness, 
and only they , “ shall shine as the stars forever.” 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


373 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 

“As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you .”—Isaiah 
lxvi., 33. 

T HE Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent 
to a child, and yet there are many who see chiefly the 
severer passages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights 
of gentle dew in one summer, that will not cause as much 
remark as one hail-storm of half an hour, so there are 
those who are more struck by those passages of the Bi¬ 
ble that announce the indignation of God than by those 
that announce his affection. There may come to a house¬ 
hold twenty or fifty letters of affection during the year, 
and they will not make as much excitement in that home 
as one sheriff’s writ; and so there are people who are 
more attentive to those passages which announce the 
wrath of God, than to those wdiick announce his mercy 
and his favor. God is a Lion, John-says in the Book of 
Revelation. God is a Breaker, Micah announces in his 
prophecy. God is a Rock. God is a King. But hear 
also that God is Love. A father and his child are walk¬ 
ing out in the fields on a summer’s day, and there comes 
up a thunder-storm, and there is a flash of lightning that 
startles the child, and the father says , u My dear,-that is 
God’s eye.” There comes a peal of thunder, and the * 
father says, “ My dear, that is God’s voice .” But the 
clouds go off the sky, and the storm is gone, and light 
floods the heavens and floods the landscape, and the fa¬ 
ther forgets to say, “ That is God’s smile.” 


374 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


The text of this morning bends with great gentleness 
and love over all who are prostrate in sin and trouble. 
It lights up with compassion. • It melts with tenderness. 
It breathes upon us the hush of an eternal lullaby, for it 
announces that God is our Mother. “ As one whom his 
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.” 

I remark, in the first place, that God has a mother*s 
simplicity of instruction. A father does not know how 
to teach a child the A, B, C. Men are not skillful in 
the primary department; but a mother has so- much pa¬ 
tience that she will tell a child for the hundredth time 
the difference between F and G, and between I and J. 
Sometimes it is by blocks; sometimes by the worsted- 
work; sometimes by the slate; sometimes by the book. 
She thus teaches the child, and has no awkwardness of 
condescension in so doing. So God, our Mother, stoops 
down to our infantile minds. Though we are told a 
thing a thousand times, and we do not understand it, our 
heavenly Mother goes on, line upon line, precept upon 
precept, here a little and there a little. God has been 
teaching some of us thirty years, and some of us sixty 
years, one word of one syllable, and we do not know it 
yet— f-a-i-t-h , faith. When we come to that word we 
stumble, we halt, we lose our place, we pronounce it 
wrong. Still, God’s patience is not exhausted. God, our 
Mother, puts us in the school of prosperity, and the let¬ 
ters are in sunshine, and we can not spell them. God 
puts us in the school of adversity, and the letters are 
black, and we can not spell them. If God were merely 
a king, he would punish us; if he were simply a father, 
he would whip us; but God is a mother, and so we are 
borne with and helped all the way through. 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


375 


A mother teaches her child chiefly by pictures. If 
she wants to set forth to her child the hideousness of a 
quarrelsome spirit, instead of giving a lecture upon that 
subject, she turns over a leaf and shows the child two 
boys in a wrangle, and says, “ Does not that look horri¬ 
ble ?” If she wants to teach her child the awfulness of 
war, she turns over the picture-book and shows the war- 
charger, the headless trunks of butchered men, the wild, 
agonizing, bloodshot eye of battle rolling under lids of 
flame, and she says, “ That is war !” The child under¬ 
stands it. In a great many books the best part are the 
pictures. The style may be insipid, the type poor, but a 
picture always attracts a child’s attention. Now^God, 
our Mother, teaches us almost every thing by pictures. 
Is the divine goodness to be set forth ? How does God, 
our Mother, teach us ? By an autumnal picture. The 
barns are f uU. The wheat-stacks are rounded. The cat¬ 
tle are chewing the cud lazily in the sun. The orchards 
are dropping the ripe pippins into the lap of the farmer. 
The natural world, that has been busy all summer, seems 
now to be resting in great abundance. We look at the 
picture and say, “ Thou crownest the year with thy good¬ 
ness, and thy paths drop fatness.” Our family comes 
around the breakfast - table. It has been a very cold 
night, but the children are all bright, because they slept 
under thick coverlids, and they are now in the warm 
blast of the open register, and their appetites make lux¬ 
uries out of the plainest fare, and we look at the picture 
and say, “ Bless the Lord, O my soul!” 

God wishes to set forth the fact that in the Judgment 
the good will be divided from the wicked. How is it 
done ? By a picture; by a parable—a fishing scene. A 


376 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


group of liardy men, long-bearded, geared for standing 
to the waist in water; sleeves rolled up. Long oar, sun- 
gilt ; boat battered as though it had been a playmate of 
the storm. A full net, thumping about with the fish, 
which have just discovered their captivity, the worthless 
moss-bunkers and the useful flounders all in the same 
net. The fisherman puts his hand down amid the squirm¬ 
ing fins, takes out the moss-bunkers and throws them 
into the water, and gathers the good fish into the pail. 
So, says Christ, it shall be at the end of the wmrld. The 
bad he will cast away, and the good he will keep. An¬ 
other picture. 

God, our Mother, wanted to set forth the duty of 
neighborly love, and it is done by a picture. A heap of 
wounds on the road to Jericho. A traveler has been 
fighting a robber. The robber stabbed him and knocked 
him down. Two ministers come along. They look at 
the poor fellow, but do not help him. A traveler comes 
along—a Samaritan. He says “ Whoa” to the beast he 
is riding, and dismounts. ILe examines the wounds; he 
takes out some wine, and with it washes the wounds, and 
then he takes some oil, and puts that in to make the 
wounds stop smarting; and then he tears off a piece of 
his own garment for a bandage. Then he helps the 
wounded man upon the beast, and walks by the side, 
holding him on until they come to a tavern. He says to 
the landlord, “ Here is money to pay the man’s board for 
two days; take care of him; if it costs any thing more, 
charge it to me, and I will pay it.” Picture —The Good 
Samaritan , or Who is your Neighbor ? 

Does God, our Mother, want to set forth what a fool¬ 
ish thing it is to go away from the right, and how glad 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


377 


divine mercy is to take back the wanderer % How is it 
done ? By a picture. A good father. Large farm, with 
fat sheep and oxen. Fine house, with exquisite ward¬ 
robe. Discontented boy. Goes away. Sharpers fleece 
him. Feeds hogs. Gets homesick. Starts back. Sees 
an old man running. It is father! The hand, torn of 
the husks, gets a ring. The foot, inflamed and bleeding, 
gets a sandal. The bare shoulder, showing through the 
tatters, gets a robe. The stomach, gnawing itself with 
hunger^ gets a full platter smoking with meat. The fa¬ 
ther can not eat for looking at the returned adventurer. 
Tears running down the face until they come to a smile 
—the night dew melting into the morning. Ho w T ork on 
the farm that day; for when a bad boy repents, and 
comes back, promising to do better, God knows that is 
enough for one day. “And they began to be merry.” 
Picture —Prodigal Son returned from the wilderness. 
So God, our Mother, teaches us every thing by pictures. 
The sinner is a lost sheep. Jesus is the Bridegroom. 
The useless man a barren fig-tree. The Gospel is a great 
supper. Satan, a sower of tares. Truth, a mustard-seed. 
That which we could not have understood in the abstract 
statement, God, our Mother, presents to us in this Bible- 
album of pictures, God engraved. “ Is not the divine 
Maternity ever thus teaching us V 9 

I remark again, that God has a mother''s favoritism. 
A father sometimes shows a sort of favoritism. Here is 
a p 0 y—strong, well, of high forehead and quick intellect. 
The father says, “ I will take that boy into my firm yet;” 
or,“I wflll give him the very best possible education.” 
There are instances where, for the culture of the one 
boy, all the others have been robbed. A sad favoritism; 


378 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


but that is not the mother’s favorite. I will tell you her 
favorite. There is a child who at two years of age had 
a fall. He has never got over it. The scarlet fever 
muffled his hearing. He is not what he once was. That 
child has caused the mother more anxious nights than 
all the other children. If he coughs in the night, she 
springs out of a sound sleep and goes to him. The last 
thing she does when going out of the house is to give a 
charge in regard to him. The first thing on coming in 
is to ask in regard to him. Why, the children of the 
family all know that he is the favorite, and say, “ Moth¬ 
er, you let him do just as he pleases, and you give him a 
great many things which you do not give us. He is your 
favorite.” The mother smiles; she knows it is so. So 
he ought to be; for if there is any one in the world who 
needs sympathy more than another, it is an invalid child, 
weary on the first mile of life’s journey; carrying an 
aching head, a weak side, an irritated lung. So the 
mother ought to make him a favorite. God, our Moth¬ 
er, has favorites. “ Whom the Lord loveth he cliasten- 
eth.” That is, one whom he especially loves he chasten- 
eth. God loves us all; but is there one weak, and sick, 
and sore, and wounded, and suffering, and faint ? That 
is the one who lies nearest and more perpetually on the 
great, loving heart of God. Why, it never coughs but 
our Mother, God, hears it. It never stirs a weary limb 
in the bed but our Mother, God, knows of it. There is 
no such a watcher as God. The best nurse may be over¬ 
borne by fatigue, and fall asleep in the chair; but God, 
our Mother, after being up a year of nights with a suf¬ 
fering child, never slumbers nor sleeps. 

“ Oh!” says one, “ I can not understand all that about 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


379 


affliction.” A refiner of silver once explained it to a 
Christian lady, “ I put the silver in the fire, and I keep 
refining it and trying it till I can see my face in it, and 
I then take it out.” Just so it is that Cod keeps his dear 
children in the furnace till the divine image may be seen 
in them; then they are taken out of the fire. “ Well,” 
says some one, “ if that is the way that Cod treats his fa¬ 
vorites, I do not want to be a favorite.” There is a bar¬ 
ren field on an autumn day just wanting to be let alone. 
There is a bang at the bars, and a rattle of whiffle-trees 
and devices. The field says, “ What is the farmer going 
to do with me now ?” The farmer puts the plow in the 
ground, shouts to the horses, the coulter goes tearing 
through the sod, and the furrow reaches from fence to 
fence. Next day there is a bang at the bars, and a rat¬ 
tle of whiffle-trees again. The field says, “ I wonder what 
the farmer is going to do now.” The farmer hitches the 
horses to the harrow, and it goes bounding and tearing 
across the field. Next day there is a rattle at the bars 
again, and the field says, “ What is the farmer going to 
do now ?” He walks heavily across the field, scattering 
seed as he walks. After a while a cloud comes. The 
field says, “What, more trouble!” It begins to rain. 
After a while the wind changes to the northeast, and it 
begins to snow. Says the field, “ Is it not enough that I 
have been torn, and trampled upon, and drowned % Must 
I now be snowed under ?” After a while, Spring comes 
out of the gates of the South, and warmth and gladness 
come with it. A green scarf bandages the gash of the 
wheat-field, and the July morning drops a crown of gold 
on the head of the grain. “ Oh!” says the field, “ now I 
know the use of the plow, of the harrow, of the heavy 


380 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


foot, of the shower, and of the snow-storm. It is well 
enough to be trodden, and trampled, and drowned, and 
snowed under, if in the end I can yield such a glorious 
harvest.” “ He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing 
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, 
bringing his sheaves with him.” 

When I see God especially busy in troubling and try¬ 
ing a Christian, I know that out of that Christian’s char¬ 
acter there is to come some especial good. A quarry- 
man goes down into the excavation, and with strong¬ 
handed machinery bores into the rock. The rock says, 
“ What do you do that for ?” He puts powder in ; he 
lights a fuse. There is a thundering crash. The rock 
says, “ Why, the whole mountain is going to pieces.” 
The crowbar is plunged; the rock is dragged out. Aft¬ 
er a while it is taken into the artist’s studio. It says, 
“Well, now I have got to a good, warm, comfortable 
place at last.” But the sculptor takes the chisel and 
mallet, and he digs for the eyes, and he cuts for the 
mouth, and he bores for the ear, and he rubs it with 
sand-paper, until the rock says, “ When will this torture 
be ended ?” A sheet is thrown over it. It stands in 
darkness. After a while it is taken out. The covering 
is removed. It stands in the sunlight, in the presence of 
ten thousand applauding people, as they greet the statue 
of the poet, or the prince, or the conqueror. “ Ah!” says 
the stone, “ now I understand it. I am a great deal bet¬ 
ter off now standing as a statue of a conqueror than I 
would have been down in the quarry.” So God finds a 
man down in the quarry of ignorance and sin. How to 
get him up ? He must be bored, and blasted, and chis¬ 
eled, and scoured, and stand sometimes in the darkness. 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


381 


But after a while the mantle of affliction will fall off, 
and his soul will be greeted by the one hundred and 
forty-four thousand, and the thousands of thousands, as 
more than conqueror. Oh, my friends, God, our Mother, 
is just as kind in our afflictions as in our prosperities. 
God never touches us but for our good. If a field clean 
and cultured is better off than a barren field, and if a 
stone that has become a statue is better off than the mar¬ 
ble in the quarry, then that soul that God chastens may 
be his favorite. Oh, the rocking of the soul is not the 
rocking of an earthquake, but the rocking of God’s cra¬ 
dle. “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I 
comfort you.” I have been told that the pearl in an 
oyster is merely the result of a wound, or a sickness in¬ 
flicted upon it, and I do not know but that the brightest 
gems of heaven will be found to have been the wounds 
of earth kindled into the jeweled brightness of eternal 
glory. 

I remark that God has a mother’s capacity for attend¬ 
ing to little hurts. The father is shocked at the broken 
bone of the child, or at the sickness that sets the cradle 
on fire wdth fever, but it takes the mother to sympathize 
with all the little ailments and little bruises of the child. 
If the child have a splinter in its hand, it wants the 
mother to take it out, and not the father. The father 
says, “ Oh, that is nothing,” but the mother knows it is 
something, and that a little hurt sometimes is a very 
great hurt. So with God, our Mother: all our annoyan¬ 
ces are important enough to look at and sympathize with. 
Nothing with God is something. There are no ciphers 
in God’s arithmetic. And if w T e were only good enough 
of sight, we could see as much through a microscope as 


382 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


through a telescope. Those things that may be impalpa¬ 
ble and infinitesimal to us, may be pronounced and in¬ 
finite to God. A mathematical point is defined as hav¬ 
ing no parts, no magnitude. It is so small you can not 
imagine it, and yet a mathematical point may be a start¬ 
ing-point for a great eternity. God’s surveyors carry a 
very long chain. A scale must be very delicate that can 
weigh a grain, but God’s scale is so. delicate that he can 
weigh with it that which is so small that a grain is a 
million times heavier. When John Kitto, a poor boy on 
a back street of Plymouth, cut his foot with a piece of 
glass, God bound it up so successfully that he became 
the great Christian geographer, and a commentator 
known among all nations. So every wound of the soul, 
however insignificant, God is willing to bind up. As at 
the first cry of the child the mother rushes to kiss the 
w r ound, so God, our Mother, takes the smallest wound of 
the heart, and presses it to the lips of divine sympathy. 
“As one whom his mother comforteth, so wfill I comfort 
you.” 

I remark farther that God has a mother’s patience for 
the erring. If one does wrong, first his associates in life 
cast him off; if he goes on in the wrong way, his busi¬ 
ness partner casts him off; if he goes on, his best friends 
cast him off—his father casts him off. But after all oth¬ 
ers have cast him off, where does he go ? Who holds no 
grudge, and forgives the last time as well as the first ? 
Who sits by the murderer’s counsel all through the long 
trial ? Who tarries the longest at the windows of a cul¬ 
prit’s cell ? Who, when all others think ill of a man, 
keeps on thinking well of him ? It is his mother. God 
bless her gray hairs, if she be still alive; and bless her 


\GOD OUR MOTHER. 


383 


grave, if she be gone ! And bless the rocking-chair in 
which she used to sit, and bless the cradle that she used 
to rock, and bless the Bible she used to read! So God, 
our Mother, has patience for all the erring. After every 
body else has cast a man off, God, our Mother, comes to 
the rescue. God leaps to take charge of a bad case. 
After all the other doctors have got through, the heaven¬ 
ly Physician comes in. Human sympathy at such a time 
does not amount to much. Even the sympathy of the 
Church, I am sorry to say, often does not amount to 
much. I have seen the most harsh and bitter treatment 
on the part of those who professed faith in Christ toward 
those who were wavering and erring. They tried on the 
wanderer sarcasm, and Billingsgate, and caricature, and 
they tried tittle-tattle. There was one thing they did not 
try, and that was forgiveness. A soldier in England was 
brought by a sergeant to the colonel. “ What,” says the 
colonel, “ bringing the man here again ! We have tried 
every thing with him.” “Oh no,” says the sergeant, 
“ there is one thing you have not tried. I would like 
you to try that.” “What is that?” said the colonel. 
Said the man, “ Forgiveness .” The case had not gone so 
far but that it might take that turn, and so the colonel 
said, “ Well, young man, you have done so and so. What 
is your excuse ?” “ I have no excuse, but I am very sor¬ 

ry,” said the man. “We have made up our minds to 
forgive you,” said the colonel. The tears started. He 
had never been accosted in that way before. His life 
was reformed, and that was the starting-point for a posi¬ 
tively Christian life. Oh Church of God, quit your sar¬ 
casm when a man falls! Quit your irony, quit your tit¬ 
tle-tattle, and try forgiveness. God, your Mother, tries 


384 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


it all the time. A man’s sin may be like a continent, 
but God’s forgiveness is like the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, bounding it on both sides. 

The Bible often talks about God’s hand. I wonder 
how it looks. You remember distinctly how your moth¬ 
er’s hand looked, though thirty years ago it withered 
away. It was different from your father’s hand. When 
you were to be chastised, you had rather have mother 
punish you than father. It did not hurt so much. ,Ynd 
father’s hand was different from mother’s, partly because 
it had out-door toil, and partly because God intended it 
to be different. The knuckles were more firmly set, and 
the palm was calloused. But mother’s hand was more 
delicate. There were blue veins running through the 
back of it. Though the fingers, some of them, were 
picked with a needle, the palm of it was soft. Oh! it 
was very soft. Was there ever any poultice like that to 
take pain out of a wound? So God’s hand is a moth¬ 
er’s hand. What it touches it heals. If it smite you, it 
does not hurt as if it were another hand. Oh you poor 
wandering soul in sin, it is not a bailiff’s hand that seizes 
you to-day. It is not a hard hand. It is not an unsym¬ 
pathetic hand. It is not a cold hand. It is not an ene¬ 
my’s hand. No. It is a gentle hand, a loving hand, a 
sympathetic hand, a soft hand, a mother’s hand. “As 
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.” 

I want to say, finally, that God has a mother’s way of 
putting a child to sleep. You know there is no cradle¬ 
song like a mother’s. After the excitement of the even¬ 
ing it is almost impossible to get the child to sleep. If 
the rocking-chair stop a moment, the eyes are wide open; 
but the mother’s patience and the mother’s soothing man- 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


385 


ner keep on until, after a while, the angel of slumber 
puts his wing over the pillow. Well, my dear brothers 
and sisters in Christ, the time will come when we will be 
wanting to be put to sleep. The day of our life will be 
done, and the shadows of the night of death will be gath¬ 
ering around us. Then w'e want God to soothe us, to 
hush us to sleep. Let the music at our going not be the 
dirge of the organ, or the knell of the church-tower, or 
the drumming of a “ dead march,” but let it be the hush 
of a mother’s lullaby. Oh ! the cradle of the grave will 
be soft with the pillow of all the promises. When we 
are being rocked into that last slumber, I want this to 
be the cradle-song: “ As one whom a mother comfort- 
eth, so will I comfort you.” 

“ Asleep in Jesus ! Far from thee 
Thy kindred and their graves may be; 

But thine is still a blessed sleep, 

From which none ever wake to weep.” 

A Christian man was dying in Scotland. His daugh¬ 
ter Nellie sat by the bedside. It was Sunday evening, 
and the bell of the Scotch kirk was ringing, calling the 
people to church. The good old man, in his dying 
dream, thought that he was on the way to church, as he 
used to be when he went in the sleigh across the river; 
and as the evening bell struck up, in his dying dream 
he thought it was the call to church. He said, “ Hark, 
children, the bells are ringing; we shall be late; we 
must make the mare step out quick!” He shivered, and 
then said, “ Pull the buffalo robe up closer, my lass! It 
is cold crossing the river, but w T e will soon be there, Nel¬ 
lie, we w T ill soon be there!” And he smiled and said, 
“Just there now .” No winder he smiled. The good 
R 


386 


GOD OUR MOTHER. 


old man had got to church. Not the old Scotch kirk, 
but the temple in the skies. Just across the river. 

How comfortably did God hush that old man to sleep! 
As one whom his mother comforteth, so God comforted 
him. 



THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


387 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM.* 

“ The almond-tree shall flourish .”—Ecclesiastes xii., 5. 

I N January, Palestine is adorned with the blossoming 
of the almond-tree. It breathes its life into that 
winter month as a promise of God sometimes lights up 
and sweetens the coldness and desolation of a sorrowing 
spirit. It was not a useless tree, made just to bloom and 
die, or, like the willow by the water-courses, to stand 
weeping into the stream, but it disputed with terebinth 
and cassia for a high place in the commerce of the world. 
Its wealth bore down the dromedaries of the desert, and 
in ships of Tarshish struggled with the sea. Its rugged 
trunk parted into gracefulness of branch, and bnrst into 
a lavishness of bloom, till the Temple imitated it in the 
golden candlestick, and Jeremiah beheld its branches 
shaking in his dream. The pomegranate had more pre¬ 
tentious color, and rung out its fragrance with red blos¬ 
soming bells, but the almond-tree stood in simple white, 
as if, while born of earth, it aspired to take on the ap¬ 
parel of those who dwell in “ raiment exceeding white” 
so as no fuller on earth can white them. When the al- 
mond-tree was in full bloom, it must have looked like 
some tree before our window on a winter’s morning, aft¬ 
er a nightfall of snow, when its brightness is almost in¬ 
sufferable, every stem a white and feathery plume. A 
row of almond-trees in full bloom must have roused up 

* Commemorative of David T. Talmage, Esq. 


388 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


all the soul’s sense of purity; and when they began to 
scatter their blossoms, as one by one they fell, it must 
have seemed like the first straggling flakes of a chill day, 
coming thicker and faster, until the herbage, still deeply 
tinged with autumnal coloring, is covered, and the moun¬ 
tains that were as scarlet become as white as snow. 

Now you are ready to see the meaning of the text. 
Solomon was giving a full-length portrait of an aged 
man. By striking figures of speech, he sets forth his 
trembling and decrepitude, and then comes to describe 
the whiteness of his locks by the blossoming of the al¬ 
mond-tree. It is the master-touch of the picture, for I 
see in that one sentence not only the appearance of the 
hair, but an announcement of the beauty of old age. 
The white locks of a bad man are but the gathered frosts 
of the second death, but “ a hoary head is a crown of 
glory” if it be found in the way of righteousness. There 
may be no color in the cheek, no lustre in the eye, no 
spring in the step, no firmness in the voice, and yet around 
the head of every old man whose life has been upright 
and Christian there hovers a glory brighter than ever 
shook in the white tops of the almond-tree. If the voice 
quiver, it is because God is changing it into a tone fit 
for the celestial choral. If the back stoop, it is only be¬ 
cause the body is just about to lie down in peaceful sleep. 
If the hand tremble, it is because God is unloosing it 
from worldly disappointments to clasp it on ringing harp 
and waving palm. If the hair has turned, it is only the 
gray light of heaven’s dawn streaming through the scant 
locks. If the brow, once adorned by a luxuriance of au¬ 
burn or raven, is smitten with baldness, it is only because 
God is preparing a place to set the everlasting crown. 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


389 


The falling of this aged Christian’s staff will be the sig¬ 
nal for the heavenly gate to swing open. The scatter¬ 
ing of the almond blossoms will only discover the setting 
of the fruit. Elijah’s flaming equipage were too tame 
for this ascending spirit. The arms of Jesus are .grand¬ 
er than bounding horses of fire! 

I have stood for the last few days as under the power 
of an enchantment. Last Friday a week, at eighty-three 
years of age, my father exchanged earth for heaven. The 
wheat was ripe, and it has been harvested. No painter’s 
pencil or poet’s rhythm could describe that magnificent 
sunsetting. It was no hurricane blast let loose, but a 
gale from heaven, that drove into the dust the blossoms 
of that almond-tree. 

There are lessons for me to learn, and also for you, for 
many of you knew him. The child of his old age, I come 
to-night to pay a humble tribute to him who, in the 
hour of my birth, took me into his w T atchful care, and 
whose parental faithfulness, combined with that of my 
mother, was the means of bringing my erring feet to the 
cross, and kindling in my soul anticipation of immortal 
blessedness. If I failed to speak, methinks the old fam¬ 
ily Bible, that I brought home with me, would rebuke 
my silence, and the very walls of my youthful home 
would tell the story of my ingratitude. I must speak, 
though it be with broken utterance, and in terms which 
may seem too strong for those who never had an oppor¬ 
tunity of gathering the fruit of this luxuriant almond- 
tree. 

1st. In my father’s old age was to be seen the beauty 
of a cheerful spirit. 

I never remember to have heard him make a gloomy 


390 


THE ALMOND-THEE IN BLOSSOM. 


expression. This was not because he had no perception 
of the pollutions of society. He abhorred any thing 
like impurity, or fraud, or double-dealing. He never 
failed to lift up his voice against sin, when he saw it.' 
He was terrible in his indignation against wrong, and 
had an iron grip for the throat of him who trampled on 
the helpless. Better meet a lion robbed of her whelps 
than him, if you had been stealing the bread from the 
mouth of the fatherless. It required all the placidity of 
my mother’s voice to calm him when once the mountain 
storm of his righteous wrath was in full blast; while as 
for himself, he would submit to more imposition, and say 
nothing, than any man I ever knew. 

But, while sensitive to the evils of society, he felt con¬ 
fident that all would be righted. When he prayed, you 
could hear in the very tones of his voice the expectation 
that Christ Jesus would utterly demolish all iniquity, and 
fill the earth with his glory. This Christian man was 
not a misanthrope, did not think that every thing was 
going to ruin, considered the world a very good place to 
live in. He never sat moping or despondent, but took 
things as they were, knowing that God could and would 
make them better. When the heaviest surge of calamity 
came upon him, he met it with as cheerful a countenance 
as ever a bather at the beach met the incoming Atlantic, 
rising up on the other side the wave stronger than when 
it smote him. Without ever being charged with frivol¬ 
ity, he sang, and whistled, and laughed. He knew about 
all the cheerful tunes that were ever printed in old “ Hew 
Brunswick Collection,” and the “ Shumway,” and the 
sweetest melodies that Thomas Hastings ever composed. 
I think that every pillar in the Somerville and Bound- 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


391 


brook churches knew his happy voice. He took the 
pitch of sacred song on Sabbath morning, and lost it not 
through all the week. I have heard him plowing amid 
the aggravations of a “ new ground,” serving writs, ex¬ 
amining deeds, going to arrest criminals, in the house 
and by the way, at the barn and in the street. When 
the church choir would break down, every body looked 
around to see if he were not ready with “Woodstock,” 
“ Mount Pisgah,” or “ Uxbridge.” And when all his fa¬ 
miliar tunes failed to express the joy of his soul, he would 
take up his own pen, draw five long lines across the sheet, 
put in the notes, and then to the tune that*he called 
“ Boundbrook” begin to sing, 

“ As when the weary traveler gains 
The height of some o’erlooking hill, 

His heart revives if, ’cross the plains, 

He eyes his home, though distant still: 

“ Thus, when the Christian pilgrim views, 

By faith, his mansion in the skies, 

The sight his fainting strength renews, 

And wings his speed to reach the prize. 

“ ’Tis there, he says, I am to dwell 
With Jesus in the realms of day : 

There I shall hid my cares farewell, 

And he will wipe my tears away.” 

But few families fall heir to so large a pile of well- 
studied note-books. He was ready at proper times for 
all kinds of innocent amusement. He often felt a mer¬ 
riment that not only touched the lips, but played upon 
every fibre of the body, and rolled down into the very 
depths of his soul with long reverberations. Ho one 
that I ever knew understood more fully the science of a 
good laugh. He was not only quick to recognize hilari- 


392 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


ty when created by others, but was always ready to do 
his share toward making it. Before extreme old age, he 
could outrun and outleap any of his children. He did 
not hide his satisfaction at having outwalked some one 
who boasted of his pedestrianism, or at having been able 
to swing the scythe after all the rest of the harvesters 
had dropped from exhaustion, or at having, in legislative 
hall, tripped up some villainous scheme for robbing the 
public treasury. We never had our ears boxed, as some 
children I wot of, for the. sin of being happy. In long 
winter nights, it was hard to tell who enjoyed sportful¬ 
ness the better, the children who romped the floor, or 
the parents who, with lighted countenance, looked at 
them. Great indulgence and leniency characterized his 
family rule, but the remembrance of at least one correc¬ 
tion more emphatic than pleasing proves that he w r as not 
like Eli of old, who had wayward sons and restrained 
them not. In the multitude of his witticisms there were 
no flings at religion, no caricatures of good men, no tri¬ 
fling with the things of eternity. His laughter was not 
the “ crackling of thorns under a pot,” but the merry 
heart that doeth good like a medicine. For this all the 
children in the community knew him; and to the last 
day of his walking out, when they saw him coming down 
the lane, shouted, “ Here comes grandfather!” Ho gall, 
no acerbity, no hypercriticism. If there was a bright 
side to any thing, he always saw it; and his name, in all 
the places where he dwelt, will long be a synonyme for 
exhilaration of spirit. 

But whence' this cheerfulness ? Some might ascribe 
it all to natural disposition. Ho doubt there is such a 
thing as sunshine of temperament. God gives more 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


393 


brightness to the almond-tree than to the cypress. While 
the pool putrefies under the summer sun, God slips the 
rill off of the rocks with a frolicsomeness that fills the 
mountain with echo. No doubt constitutional structure 
had much to do with this cheerfulness. He had, by a 
life of sobriety, preserved his freshness and vigor. You 
know that good habits are better than speaking-tubes to 
the ear; better than a staff to the hand; better than loz¬ 
enges to the throat; better than warm baths to the feet; 
better than bitters for the stomach. His lips had not 
been polluted nor his brain befogged by the fumes of 
the noxious weed that has sapped the life of whole gen¬ 
erations, sending even ministers of the Gospel to untime¬ 
ly graves, over which the tombstone declared, “ Sacri¬ 
ficed by overwork in the Lord’s vineyard,” when, if the 
marble had not lied, it would have said, “ Killed by vil¬ 
lainous tobacco!” He abhorred any thing that could in¬ 
toxicate, being among the first in this country to join the 
crusade against alcoholic beverage. When urged, during 
a severe sickness, to take some .stimulus,he said,“No; 
if I am to die, let me die sober!” The swill of the brew¬ 
ery had never been poured around the roots of this thrif¬ 
ty almond. To the last week of his life his ear could 
catch a child’s whisper, and at fourscore years his eyes 
refused spectacles, although he would sometimes have to 
hold the book off on the other side of the light, as octo¬ 
genarians are wont to do. No trembling of the hands, 
no rheum in the eyes, no knocking together of the knees, 
no hobbling on crutches with what polite society terms 
rheumatism in the feet, but what every body knows is 
nothing but gout. Death came, not to fell the gnarled 
trunk of a tree worm-eaten and lightning-blasted, but to 
*R 2 


394 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


hew down a Lebanon cedar, whose fall made the moun¬ 
tains tremble and the heavens ring. 

But physical health could not account for half of this 
sunshine. Sixty-four years ago a coal from the heav¬ 
enly altar had kindled a light that shone brighter and 
brighter to the perfect day. Let Almighty grace for 
nearly three quarters of a century triumph in a man’s 
soul, and do you wonder that he is happy? For twice 
the length of your life and mine he had sat in the bow T er 
of the promises, plucking the round, ripe clusters of Esh- 
col. While others bit their tongue for thirst, he stood at 
the wells of salvation, and put his lips to the bucket that 
came up dripping with the fresh, cool, sparkling waters 
of eternal life. This joy w T as not that which breaks in 
the bursting bubble of the Champagne-glass, or that 
which is thrown out with the orange-peelings of a mid¬ 
night bacchanalia, but the joy which, planted by a Sav¬ 
ior’s pardoning grace, mounts up higher and higher, till 
it rolls forth in the acclaim of the hundred and forty and 
four thousand who have broken their last chain and wept 
their last sorrow. O mighty God, how deep, how wide, 
how high the joy thou kindlest in the heart of the be¬ 
liever ! 

Again: We beheld in our father the beauty of a Chris¬ 
tian faith. 

Let not the account of his cheerfulness give } r ou the 
idea that he never had any trouble. But few men have 
so serious and overwhelming a life-struggle. He went 
out into the world without means, and with no educa¬ 
tional opportunity save that which was afforded him in 
the winter months, in an old, dilapidated school-house, 
from instructors whose chief work was to collect their 


THE ALMOND-TBEE IN BLOSSOM. 


395 


own salary. Instead of postponing tlie marriage rela¬ 
tion, as modern society compels a young man to post¬ 
pone it, until lie can earn a fortune, and be able, at com¬ 
mencement of the conjugal relation, to keep a compan¬ 
ion like the lilies of the field, that toil not nor spin, 
though Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like 
one of these, he chose an early alliance w T ith one w T ho 
would not only be able to enjoy the success of life, but 
who would with her own willing hands help achieve it. 
And so, while father plowed the fields, and threshed the 
wheat, and broke the flax, and husked the corn, my moth¬ 
er stood for Solomon’s portraiture when he said, “ She 
riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her 
household. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her 
hands hold the distaff. She is not afraid of the snow 
for her household, for all her household are clothed with 
scarlet. Her children arise up and call her blessed; her 
husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have 
done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.” So that the 
limited estate of the New Jersey farmer never foundered 
on millinery establishments and confectionery shops; and 
though we were some years of age before w T e heard the 
trill of a piano, we knew well all about the song of “ The 
Spinning-wheel.” There were no lords, or baronets, or 
princes in our ancestral line. None wore stars, cockade, 
or crest. There was once a family coat-of-arms, but we 
were none of us wise enough to tell its meaning. Do 
our best, we can not find any thing about our forerunners 
except that they behaved well, came over from Wales 
or Holland a good while ago, and died when their time 
came. Some of them may have had fine equipage and 
caparisoned postilion, but the most of them were sure 


396 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


only of footmen. My father started in life belonging 
to the aristocracy of hard knuckles and homespun, but 
had this high honor that no one could despise: he was 
the son of a father who loved God and kept his com¬ 
mandments. What is house of Ilapsburg, or Stuarts, 
compared with the honor of being a son of the Lord 
God Almighty? Two eyes, two hands, and two feet 
were the capital my father started with. For fifteen 
years an invalid, he had a fearful struggle to support his 
large family. Nothing but faith in God upheld him. 
His recital of help afforded and deliverances wrought 
was more like a romance than a reality. He walked 
through many a desert, but every morning had its man¬ 
na, and every night its pillar of fire, and every hard rock 
a rod that could shatter it into crystal fountains at his 
feet. More than once he came to his last dollar, but 
right behind that last dollar he found Him who owns the 
cattle on a thousand hills, and out of the palm of whose 
hand all the fowls of heaven peck their food, and who 
hath given to each one of his disciples a warrantee deed 
for the whole universe in the words, All are tours.” 

The path that led him through financial straits pre¬ 
pared him also for sore bereavements. Tlfe infant of 
days was smitten, and he laid it into the river of death 
with as much confidence as infant Moses w T as laid into 
the ark of the Nile, knowing that soon from the royal 
palace a shining One would come to fetch it. 

In an island of the sea, among strangers, almost un¬ 
attended, death came to a beloved son ; and though I re¬ 
member the darkness that dropped on the household 
when the black-sealed letter was opened, I remember 
also the utterances of Christian submission. 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


397 

Another, bearing his own name, just on the threshold 
of manhood, his heart beating high with hope, falls into 
the dnst; but above the cries of early widowhood and 
the desolation of that dark day I hear the patriarch’s 
prayer commending children and children’s children to 
the divine sympathy. 

But a deeper shadow fell across the old homestead. 
The “ golden wedding” had been celebrated nine years 
before. My mother looked up, pushed back her specta¬ 
cles, and said, “ Just think of it, father—we have been 
together fifty-nine years!” The twain stood together 
like two trees of the forest with interlocked branches. 
Their affections had taken deep root together in many a 
kindred grave. Side by side in life’s great battle they 
had fought the good fight and "won the day. But death 
comes to unjoint this alliance. God will not any longer 
let her suffer mortal ailments. The reward of righteous¬ 
ness is ready, and it must be paid. But what tearing 
apart! What rending up! What will the aged man do 
without this other to lean on ? Who can so well under¬ 
stand how to sympathize and counsel? What voice so 
cheering as hers to conduct him down the steep of old 
age ? “ Oh,” she said, in her last moments, “ father, if 

you and I could only go together, how pleasant it would 
be!” But the hush of death came down one autumnal 
afternoon, and for the first time in all my life, on my ar¬ 
rival home, I received no maternal greeting, no answer 
of the lips, no pressure of the hand. God had taken her. 

In this overwhelming shock the patriarch stood confi¬ 
dent, reciting the promises and attesting the divine good¬ 
ness. Oh, sirs, that was faith! faith ! faith ! “ Thanks 
be unto God who giveth us the victory!” 


398 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


Finally, I notice that in my father’s old age was to be 
seen the beauty of Christian activity. 

He had not retired from the field. He had been busy 
so long, you could not expect him idle now. The faith 
I have described was not an idle expectation that sits 
with its hands in its pockets idly waiting, but a feeling 
which gathers up all the resources of the soul, and hurls 
them upon one grand design. He was among the first 
who toiled in Sabbath-schools, and never failed to speak 
the praise of these institutions. Ho storm or darkness 
ever kept him away from prayer-meeting. In the neigh¬ 
borhood where he lived, for years he held a devotional 
meeting. Oftentimes the only praying man present be¬ 
fore a handful of attendants, he would give out the hymn, 
read the lines, conduct the music, and pray. Then read 
the Scriptures, and pray again. Then lead forth in the 
Doxology with an enthusiasm as if there were a thou¬ 
sand people present, and all the Church members had 
been doing their duty. He went forth visiting the sick, 
burying the dead, collecting alms for the poor, inviting 
the ministers of religion to his household, in which there 
was, as in the house of Shunem, a little room over the 
wall, with bed and candlestick for any passing Elisha. 
He never shuddered at the sight of a subscription-paper, 
and not a single great cause of benevolence has arisen 
within the last half century which he did not bless with 
his beneficence. Oh! this was not a barren almond-tree 
that blossomed. His charity was not like tfie bursting 
of the bud of a famous tree in the South, that fills the 
whole forest with its racket, nor was it a clumsy thing, 
like the fruit in some tropical clime, that crashes down, 
almost knocking the life out of those who gather it, for 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


399 


in his case the right hand knew not what the left hand 
did. The churches of God, in whose service he toiled, 
have arisen as one man to declare his faithfulness and to 
mourn their loss. He stood in the front of the holy war, 
and the courage which never trembled or winced in the 
presence of temporal danger induced him to dare all 
things for God. In church matters he was not afraid 
to be shot at. Ordained, not by the laying on of human 
hands, but by the imposition of a Savior’s love, he preach¬ 
ed by his life, in official position, and legislative hall, and 
commercial circles, a practical Christianity. He showed 
that there was such a thing as honesty in politics. He 
slandered no party, stuffed no ballot-box, forged no natu¬ 
ralization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, sur-. 
rendered no principle, countenanced no demagogism. 
He called things by their right names; and what others 
styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement, or hy¬ 
perbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being 
undecided in his views, and never professed neutrality, 
or had any consort with those miserable men who boast 
how well they can walk on both sides of a dividing-line 
and be on neither, yet even in the excitements of elec¬ 
tion canvass, when his name was hotly discussed in pub¬ 
lic journals, I do not think his integrity was ever assault¬ 
ed. Starting every morning with a chapter of the Bible, 
and his whole family around him on their knees, he for¬ 
got not, in the excitements of the world, that he had a 
God to serve and a heaven to win. The morning pray¬ 
er came up on one side of the day, and the evening pray¬ 
er on the other side, and joined each other in an arch 
above his head, under the shadow of which he walked 
all the day. The Sabbath worship extended into Mon- 


400 


THE ALMOND-TBEE IN BLOSSOM. 


day’s conversation, and Tuesday’s bargain, and Wednes¬ 
day’s mirthfulness, and Thursday’s controversy^ and Fri¬ 
day’s sociality, and Saturday’s calculation. 

Through how many thrilling scenes he had passed! 
He stood, at Morristown, in the choir that chanted when 
George Washington was buried; talked with young men 
whose grandfathers he had held on his knee; watched 
the progress of John Adams’s administration; denounced, 
at the time, Aaron Burr’s infamy; heard the guns that 
celebrated the New Orleans victory; voted against Jack- 
son, but lived long enough to wish we had one just like 
him; remembered when the first steamer struck the 
North River with its wheel-buckets; flushed .with ex¬ 
citement in the time of National Banks arfd Sub-Treas¬ 
ury ; was startled at the birth of telegraphy; saw the 
United States grow from a speck on the world’s map, 
till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen, 
and our “ national airs” have been heard on the steeps 
of the Himalayas; was born while the revolutionary can¬ 
non were coming home from Yorktown, and lived to 
hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the 
great Rebellion; lived to speak the names of eighty chil¬ 
dren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Nearly 
all his contemporaries gone! Aged Wilberforce said 
that sailors drink to “ friends astern” until half way over 
the sea, and then drink to “ friends ahead.” With him 
it had for a long time been “ friends ahead.” So also 
with my father. Long and varied pilgrimage ! Nothing 
but sovereign grace could have kept 4iim true, earnest, 
useful, and Christian through so many exciting scenes. 

He worked unweariedly from the sunrise of youth to 
the sunset of old age, and then in the sweet nightfall of 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


401 

death, lighted by the starry promises, went home, taking 
his sheaves with him. Mounting from earthly to heav¬ 
enly service, I doubt not there were a great multitude 
that thronged heaven’s gate to hail him into the skies— 
those whose sorrows he had appeased, whose burdens he 
had lifted, whose guilty souls he had pointed to a par¬ 
doning God, whose dying moments he had cheered, whose 
ascending spirits he had helped up on the wings of sa¬ 
cred music. I should like to have heard that long, loud, 
triumphant shout of heaven’s welcome. I think that the 
harps throbbed with another thrill, and the hills quaked 
with a mightier hallelujah. Hail, ransomed soul! thy 
race run—thy toil ended. Hail to the coronation ! 

Now, after- such a life, what sort of death would you 
have expected? Will God conduct a voyager through 
so many storms, and then let him get shipwrecked com¬ 
ing up the harbor ? Not such a one is my God and Sav¬ 
ior. The telegraph thrilled with tidings north, south, 
east, west, that brought, in the rushing rail-train, his kin¬ 
dred together. The hour for which this aged servant of 
God had waited patiently had come, and he rejoiced with 
a joy at which the tongue faltered. There was no turn¬ 
ing from side to side on the pillow, as if looking for es¬ 
cape from grim pursuers, but a gazing up and around, 
as if looking out for the chariot of King Jesus. The 
prayer which the older sons had heard him make forty 
years ago, asking that at last lie might have “ nothing to 
do but to die,” was literally answered. All his children, 
save that one which he sent forth with his blessing a few 
months ago, in the good ship “ Surprise,” to proclaim the 
glories of the Messiah on the other side of the earth, 
were present—some to pray, some to hold his hand, some 


402 THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 

to batlie his brow; all to watch, and w T ait, and weep, and 
rejoice. He asked about our children—asked about you. 
Talked about the past. Expressed his anticipations of 
the future. Slept sweetly as a child ever slept in the 
arms of its mother. Then broke forth with the utter¬ 
ance, “ Goodness and mercy have followed me all the 
days of my life!” The Bible that he had studied for so 
many years now cast its light far on into the valley, un¬ 
til the very gate of heaven flashed upon his vision. Some 
one quoted the passage, “ This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners.” “Of whom I am chief, J” re¬ 
sponded the dying Christian. We said, “ To live is 
Christ.” He answered, “ To die is gain;” and, lest we 
did not understand him, he repeated, “ To die is gain !” 
And as if the vision grew more enrapturing, he contin¬ 
ued to say, “To die is gain /” Ministers of the Gospel 
came in, and after the usual greeting, he said, “ Pray! 
pray!” 

We sang some of his favorite hymns, such as, 

“Jesus can make a dying bed 
Feel soft as downy pillows are, 

Whilefpn his breast I lean my head, 

And breathe my life out sweetly there.” 

He would seem almost to stop breathing in order to 
listen, and then, at the close, w T ould signify that he re¬ 
membered the old tune right well. He said, “ I shall 
be gone soon, but not too soon.” Some one quoted, 
“ Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil.” And he replied, “ Thy rod 
and thy staff they comfort me.” “ Can you testify of 
God’s faithfulness ?” said another. He answered, “ Yes; 


THE ALMOND-THEE IN BLOSSOM. 


403 


I have been young, and now I am old, yet have I never 
seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” 
He said, “ I have it good; I could not have it any bet¬ 
ter; I feel well; all is well.” Again, and again, and 
again he repeated, “All is well /” Then, lifting his hand, 
exclaimed, “ Peace ! peace !” 

On the morning of the 27tli of October, just three 
years from the day when the soul of his companion sped 
into the heavens, it was evident that the last moment had 
come. Softly the news came to all the sleepers in the 
house, and the quick glance of lights from room to room 
signaled the coming of the death angel. We took out 
our watches, and said, “Four o'clock and fifteen min¬ 
utes /” The pulse fluttered as a tree-branch lifts and 
falls at the motion of a bird’s wing about to cleave its 
way into the heavens. No quick start of pain; no glassy 
stare; but eyelid lightly closed, and calm lip, and white 
blossoms of the almond-tree. From the stand we turned 
over the old timepiece that he had carried so long, and 
which he thought always w T ent right, and announced, 
“Just four o'clock and twenty minutes /” The tides of 
the cold river rising. Felt of the wrist,but no pulse; 
of the temples, but no stir; of the h^trt, but no action. 
We listened, but heard nothing. Still! still! The gates 
of the earthly prison-house silently open wider and wdder. 
Free ! Clear the way for the conquering spirit! Shout 
upward the tidings! 

Four o'clock and thirty minutes ! Without a groan 
or a sigh, he had passed upward into the light. “And 
when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, 
he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the 
ghost, and w T as gathered unto his people.” 


404 


THE ALMOND-TBEE IN BLOSSOM. 


The day for burial came. An autumnal Sabbath was 
let down clear from heaven. At the first gush a of the 
dawn, we said, “ This is just the day in which for a Chris¬ 
tian to be buried 1” Fading leaf indeed under foot told 
of the decaying body, but streaming sunshine spoke of 
resurrection joy. They came tottering on their staff— 
old comrades who, in eighteen hundred and twelve, had 
marched beside him, drilling in the field, ready for he¬ 
roic strife. They came—the poor whose rent he had 
paid to keep their children from the blasts of winter. 
They came—the erring men whom he had bailed out of 
prison. They came—the children wdio had watched his 
step, and played with his cane, and had often wondered 
what new attraction grandfather would unfold from his 
deep pockets. They came—the ministers of religion who 
had sat with him in church courts, and planned for the 
advancement of religion. 

Passing along the roads where he had often gone, and 
by the birthplace of most of his children, we laid him 
down to rest, just as the sun was setting in the country 
grave-yard, close beside her with whom for more than 
half a century he had walked, and prayed, and sung, and 
counseled. It seamed as if she must speak a greeting. 
But no voice broke the sod, no whisper ran through the 
grass, no word % of recognition was uttered. Side by side 
Jacob and Rachel were buried. Let one willow overarch 
their graves. Instead of two marble slabs, as though 
these of whom we speak were twain, let there be but a 
single shaft, for they were one. Monument not preten¬ 
tious, but plain, for they were old-fashioned people. On 
one side the marble set the date of their coming and go¬ 
ing. On this side the name of David, the husband and 


THE ALMOND-TREE IN BLOSSOM. 


405 


father. On that third side the name of Catharine, the 
wife and mother. Then there will be but one side un- 
cliiseled. How shall we mark it ? With story of Chris¬ 
tian zeal and self-sacrifice for God? Ho! Father and 
mother would shake their heads if they were awake to 
read it. This rather let it be: “ The Mokning cometh.” 
—Isaiah xxi., 12. 

Henceforward we shall be orphans. Sad thing, even 
at manhood, to become fatherless and motherless. Ho 
one but God can make up for the loss of a father’s coun¬ 
sel and a mother’s tenderness. Hope thou in God! 
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the 
morning. Quaint John Bunyan caught a glimpse of the 
glorious ending of all earthly trial when he said,“Just 
as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in 
after them, and behold, the city shone like the sun ; the 
streets were also paved with gold, and in them walked 
many men with crowns on their heads, and golden harps 
to sing praises withal. And after that they shut up the 
gates, which when I had seen I wished myself among 
themP 


THE END. 




RELIGIOUS WORKS, 

(, Sermons , Biographies , and Family Reading ), 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 


BEECHER'S SERMONS. Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher, 
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. Selected from Published and Unpub¬ 
lished Discourses, and Revised by their Author. In Two Volumes, 
with Steel Portrait by Halpin. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00. 

The published sermons of the Plymouth pastor, like wind-wafted seed, have car¬ 
ried the germs of a new life to all quarters of the world, and have awakened the 
immortal longings of the hunter in his prairie cabin, and the sailor on the. distant 
sea. No one needs that we should speak of the exuberance of illustration and 
the felicity of expression that make these books as fascinating as the pages of old 
Thomas Fuller or the essays of “ Elia.” Every body has come under the glamour 
of Mr. Beecher’s style, and every one of these pages abounds in his peculiar beau¬ 
ties. Here is no garden, but (according to the author’s own lavish idea of the de¬ 
sirable) a whole prairie of flowers.— N. F. Times. m 

ROBERTSON'S LIFE AND SERMONS. 

Life, Letters, Lectures on Corinthians, and Addresses of the late 
Frederick W. Robertson, M.A., Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, 
Brighton, 1847-1853. With Portrait on Steel. Large i2mo, 840 
pages, Cloth, $1 50; Half Calf, $3 25. 

Sermons preached at Brighton by the late Rev. Frederick W. Rob¬ 
ertson, the Incumbent of Trinity Chapel. With Portrait on Steel. 
Large i2mo, 838 pages, Cloth, $1 50; Half Calf, $3 25. 

Into two plump duodecimos, whose large print is large enough for poor eyes, 
and whose small print is not unreasonably small, the Harpers have compressed 
the “Life and Letters,’’ “Lectures and Addresses," and “Sermons" of the late 
Frederick W. Robertson. Of the sermons we have lately had occasion to speak, 
and few of our readers who are in the habit of reading printed sermons are likely 
to be wholly unfamiliar with these. Their influence upon clergymen and students 
of divinity has been, and probably continues, great; but we should expect more 
general good to result from an equal circulation of the “Life and Letters.” Of 
this we remember to have written: “No biography since the publication of Stan¬ 
ley’s ‘Life of Arnold’ has been issued from the press so well adapted to sink into 
the minds of younger men and mould their opinions, and to raise the tone of the 
Christian ministry to a higher standard and we added in reference to the letters: 
“ They are to be digested as Robertson himself read, and advised others to read¬ 
only a few pages at a time; and so read, we know not where to find their equal 
for suggestive power.” This judgment, as we turn over the pages in which Mr. 
Brooke has allowed his friend to portray himself as no one else could have done, 
we find confirmed, especially in what relates to the value of Mr. Robertson’s ex¬ 
ample and teachings for the young. Not only will they serve to evoke and de¬ 
velop the sentiment of religion, to counteract the materialistic tendencies of the 
age, to call up lofty ideals and inspire manly enthusiasm, but almost to impart 
the culture of a liberal education.— Nation, N. Y. 

SPRING'S SERMONS. Pulpit Ministrations; or, Sabbath Readings. 
By Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D., Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian 
Church in the City of New York. Portrait on Steel. Two Vols., 
8vo, Cloth, $6 00. 

In these volumes the author has arranged those productions which his own 
judgment has approved as the most edifying and best fitted to be popular in the 
family, conveying his maturest thoughts and most finished illustrations of divine 
truth.-—A 7 . F. Observer. 



2 


Harper 6 ° Brothers' Religious Works. 


TALMAGE'S SERMONS. Sermons by the Rev. T. De Witt Tal- 
mage, delivered in the Brooklyn Tabernacle. i2mo, Cloth, $ 2 00. 

BLAIR'S SERMONS. Sermons of Rev. Hugh Blair, D.D. To 
which is prefixed the Life and Character of the Author, by James 
Finlayson, D.D. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. 

SUMMERFIELD'S SERMONS. Sermons of Rev. John Summer- 
field, A.M. With an Introduction by Rev. T. E. Bond, M.D. 8vo, 
Cloth, $2 00. 

SAURIN'S SERMONS. Sermons of Rev. James Saurin, D.D. 
Translated by Rev. Robert Robinson, Rev. Henry Hunter, 
D.D., and Rev. Joseph Sutcliffe. Portrait. Two Vols., 8vo, 
Cloth, $4 00. 

ROBERT BALL'S WORKS. The Complete Works of Robert 
Hall : his Sermons and Addresses, with a brief Memoir of his Life, 
by Dr. Gregory, and Observations on his Character as a Preacher, 
by Rev. J@hn Foster. Edited by Olinthus Gregory, LL.D., and 
Rev. Joseph Belcher. Portrait. Four Vols., 8vo, Sheep extra, 
$9 00. 

JA Y'S WORKS. The Complete Works of Rev. William Jay : com¬ 
prising his Sermons, Family Discourses, Morning and Evening Ex¬ 
ercises for Every Day in the Year, Family Prayers, &c. Author’s 
enlarged Edition, Revised. Three Vols., 8vo, Cloth, $6 00. 

DWIGHT'S SERMONS. Theology Explained and Defended in a 
Series of Sermons. By Timothy Dwight, S.T.D., LL.D. With 
a Memoir of the Life of the Author. Portrait. Four Vols., 8vo, 
Cloth, $8 00. 

CHALMERS'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. Edited by Rev. Wm. 
Hanna, D.D. Comprising Daily Scripture Readings , 3 vols.; In¬ 
stitutes of Theology , 2 vols. ; Sermons from 1798 to 1847 ; Sabbath 
Scripture Readings , 2 vols.; Lectures and Addresses. Nine Vols. 
i2mo, Cloth, $1 50 per vol. 

BEECHER'S MORNING AND EVENING EXERCISES. Morn¬ 
ing and Evening Devotional Exercises : selected from the Published 
and Unpublished Writings of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 
Edited by Lyman Abbott. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00 . 

These selections from Mr. Beecher’s writings are arranged for morning and even¬ 
ing devotional readings. They are headed by an appropriate text of Scripture, 
and a few verses from "familiar hymns or well-known sacred poems are sometimes 
added. There is a reading for the morning and evening of each day of the year, 
and the fitting thoughts for each season are always suggested. Like all Mr. Beech¬ 
er’s teachings, these are simple, earnest, and practical, with little of doctrine in 
them, but much that bears on everyday life. Their aim is to bring comfort and 
strength amid the warfare and struggles of the world, to elevate the mind and an¬ 
imate the heart with high, noble, and. holy thoughts. To those who would snatch 
a few minutes before the day’s work begins for serious thought, and would end 
it with reflection, this volume can be warmly recommended.— N. Y. Times. 


Harper & Brothers will send any of the preceding works by mail Postage 
prepaid\ to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price*. 






’ * *■<- ’• 
\ ** 

CV .!•«- > 

Vv 



.v *•••* A 0 ' 

V ^ 4 ?^ * 

% ++ ^ * ./ •’ 

VV • ' J> v 

• Ai-JV A V->> : 

* ^ \ 'W.‘ ** ^ -3 

«v» ^ • * 4 A <* * 

v c v ~ ’ 4 'JTa (V* « 1 ' * ♦ O c ° “ * 4 ^ . 

JV • _r*^fv ^** ' C, 4 O i V » rt^fv 4 '•f* 

4 « <5coa\i**%. * v y' J . , w * Mtf[///>-. „ «N 


* A V *^. - 

* ** % • 






« • o 




* «5 °<* -Vd^s^* 0 

* *Jt> O ^ 

<*> ' # % * • • 0 ° A 0 

v v *•Vj* 4 c\, ,0 v * * • «, 

*: V* *JS|\ %/ > v ^ % ^ ^ * 

.* jp 4.v^. -^a^. ^ 


* A'% 4 

* 4 * • 



* , 6 V O -c..* ^ < */T 7 i* , 6 ^ 

• V ' • 4 -V’ 6 0 ■ • - ^ p,^ L I . ^ 

c ''grfflfo:* ° W* % c° *V^ ° 

o > 




•^o< 




* A *• 


.* % v 



W V V‘ : ? 

• 4 . *•■• a 0 V, ‘ 

“ "V "o. 



G 0 0 ■ • « <*. 


C° .V 


* *p 

„* *?'. - 
« 7** ^ 

. ^ o x 

• 4 0 * . 

„ •, < 1 ? 

. _ , ^ _ V cv V 

v ,^v*v v<^>; 

:> cV^ V 


. * * A 






_ * <P <#S A 

«-» <> ^7.** <G V '«•»* A 

6 0 “ * v* *<$» A • 1 * * * % A ft 

N « *3^ „ ^ *S?n/Z>h * ... A ' < 



; ^ - 


/ “v^-\/ V' ; ^*/ V ; 

4 q^ *«••**> V s . 8 ‘7% C\ ,0 ft!,*®* V 

A *.6^ • o. T^. A Aa^.^a.V «$> 


- *0 .°^ 

> : 0 »°V x£ 


v .<»* * 



. •>-. ,<c- 


O xV * 

*$* A * 


0 * « 


* •-, 

;* ^ __ 

<V A % '** fc * A^ 

% ^ f cr **^7*„ . 


: a v *%, : 

-.* ** % • 



V ^ 




-O ,7 . 'V 

*. "°o v :°&m;- *+* -'• 

‘ '?W§> : *• 


o. * , 


V v**--‘A °A 


* *' ’ * V ^ • • 

A .•*•* c\ .0 

*, .♦ .v®**. ^ a* 4 ¥r„ ^ ^ • < 

■^v 't' e > > «« ■ vV° 

"* *f$**/V 4 -o A 

*V 0 0 a * •* -0^ . • k ' * ♦ *0 0 





0 ^ * 



'K 


o v 



» 

• 4 

* **«^*** ^ a^ *dSfc 5 l’ ^ A * ^ #AO ^ 

• ,^'V *, 

.* J? % ”- K 

<. ‘-7'..* '* ■' '■ 

, o * « . <i>. 

0 - ^ O' 



A** 

v v <*. • 



*< ■* 
' 4 ? % • 



- r 


^ 0 




4 0 
> %<> 



•’b V" .“‘W 


4.°-V -A 



G v c o *' a « ^ 















